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L DING THE UNION 


By 


Mrs. WILSON WOODROW and ARCHIBALD L. SESSIONS 



• • 


BUILDING THE UNION 


By 


Mrs. WILSON WOODROW- and ARCHIBALD L. SESSIONS 

It • 



NEW YORK 

BRANDT AND KIRKPATRICK, INC 
1917 


Copyright, 1917, 

By 

Mrs. Wilson Woodrow and Archibald L. Sessions. 



©aA45779.‘5 


APR -4 1917 

{ , 



BUILDING THE UNION 


“There is no North or South, 

And there is no East or West. 

Our tears are she-d for heroic dead, 
Asleep in the earth’s broad breast. 

“There is no East or West, 

And there is no North or South. 
The palm and the pine together twine 
Over the cannon’s mouth.” 


A NATIONAL IDEAL. 

The theme is Union — that passionate and unquenchable 
sentiment of the American people which, working through 
three generations was able to fuse a host of widely- 
scattered and bitterly opposed interests and opinions 
and communities into a single vital organism, and evolve 
from a handful of weak and struggling colonies a great 
and powerful nation. One flag, one government, one 
dominion across a continent. A far-flung battle line 
which today, in the strength of union, faces calm and 
undismayed all of the rest of the world. 

National liberty had been secured by the War of the 
Revolution; a national government was established with 
the ratification of the Constitution ; by cession and pur- 
chase the national boundaries had been extended until 
they reached from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from 
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. But a national 
consciousness was still wanting. The Union, as some- 
thing more than a name, was yet to be accomplished. 

THE SWORD AND THE SURVEYOR. 

It remained for the decade between i860 and 1870 to 
see this dream of patriots and statesmen realized. Two 
great movements, independent of each other and employ- 
ing utterly variant forces, but practically coincident in 
time, achieved the result. 

The first was of course the Civil War. In blood and 

3 


tears and with the clash of mighty armies, the question 
of Dis-Union was forever settled. The contention for 
which the South fought, that the United States was not 
a nation in itself but an assemblage of nations allied for 
mutual convenience and from which any of the partic- 
ipants was at any time free to withdraw, ended at 
Appomattox. The Union was no longer a disputed issue, 
but a truth to which all men subscribed, Mississippi as 
well as Massachusetts, Virginia equally with New York. 

But there was another question in its way no less im- 
portant — the assimilation of all that vast region beyond 
the Mississippi and the necessity of binding into closer 
association our settlements along the Pacific coast. In 
other words, there was no longer a North and South, 
but there remained an East and West. To cope with 
that condition we called upon the surveyor with his 
level and transit. 

THE WEST THAT WAS 

The empire of the West, largely conquered territory, 
lawless, uncivilized, populated almost wholly by savage 
and intractable tribes of Indians, was attached to the 
Union only by the uncertain ties that are maintained by 
authority and the power to enforce it. 

Practically unconscious of the national sentiments and 
traditions which had convulsed the East, it had continued 
to be since the gold discoveries of 1849 a field for ex- 
ploitation by a few adventurers. Except for the com- 
paratively insignificant region on the coast, there was no 
organized community, no laws, no machinery of gov- 
ernment — nothing but nondescript devices adapted to 
temporary emergencies. To all intents and purposes, 
the West, though in the Union, was not of it. It was 
either indifferent to the idea, or in the case of the Indian 
and Mexican population actively hostile to it. 

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. 

And so, in pursuit of the dream and the ideal which 
had led them on, the American people undertook that 
second great movement of the ’60s, and the final step in 
the evolution of the nation. 

It was a Titanic task which faced them — the welding 
into the national structure of a territory greater than 

4 


the whole continent of Europe, the upbuilding of a vast, 
empty expanse of wilderness, the subjugation of hordes 
of wild savages, the linking into national communion and 
into the national life of a population separated from us 
both in distance and interests as far as the people of 
Spain and Portugal. 

Yet the genius and spirit of the people which had 
built a great republic from the two little settlements of 
pilgrims at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, and had 
maintained it through stress and storm for upward of 
a hundred years, was not dismayed. 

With daring and determination they planned and car- 
ried to completion a tremendous enterprise which was 
to cemient in indissoluble ties the two wide-flung sections 
of our national domain and compass at last the long-held 
vision of Union. 

It was that consummate victory of peace — the building 
of our first Transcontinental Railroad. 

THE TRANSCONTINENTAL ROAD. 

This ultimate winning of the West, and the realization 
thereby of a cohesive and united nation was a project 
which had troubled the minds of a few far-seeing souls 
even before the conquest of California. 

As early as 1836 agitation of the subject of a railroad 
to the Pacific coast was begun, and it was continued in 
the face of ridicule and opposition for almost thirty years. 
Discouragement, disappointment and financial disaster 
pursued those who advanced or followed the idea of a 
transcontinental road. Still the suggestion grew and 
began to attract public attention. Congress finally took 
it up, authorized surveys and appropriated money. But 
the time for the actual construction was ripe, only when 
the overwhelming sentiment of Union irnperatively de- 
manded the completion of the project. With the issue of 
secession still in doubt, it became necessary to devise 
some means of holding in closer ties the far-away ter- 
ritory of California, and the detached settlements of 
the West. 

THE BUILDERS. 

The men who at that moment were foremost in urging 
a railroad through to the Pacific were those to whom the 

5 


task was entrusted, and who finally carried it through 
under authority given them by an act of Congress signed 
by President Lincoln in 1862. 

The four who stand out most prominently among these 
were Collis P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins, the pro- 
prietors of a hardware store at Sacramento, Leland 
Stanford, a wholesale grocer, and Charles Crocker, a 
dry-goods merchant of San Francisco. 

They had given encouragement to Theodore D. Judah, 
an enthusiastic civil engineer who had at his own expense 
made surveys for a railroad among the Sierra Nevada 
mountains. The result was that these four men, subse- 
quently in derision called, “The Hardware Crowd,” incor- 
porated the Central Pacific Railroad, and began actual 
construction work by filling in a mud-hole at the foot of 
K street in Sacramento amid the jeers and laughter of a 
crowd of mocking loafers. 

Meanwhile, through the efforts of Thomas C. Durant, 
a New York banker, the Union Pacific Railroad was or- 
ganized to push westward from Omaha and by a junction 
with the Central Pacific form a through line from the 
East to the West. 

The difficulties and obstacles and discouragements of 
the two companies as they struggled year after year 
toward the point of meeting were practically identical; 
but the experiences of the “Hardware Crowd” were on 
the whole the more picturesque and striking. 

FAITH AND A SHOESTRING. 

They started out with practically no resources other 
than a boundless faith and enthusiasm. Huntington, the 
financial genius of the company, travelled from San 
Francisco to New York and Boston in vain attempts 
to raise the necessary capital to build the road. But San 
Francisco sneered and the East was indifferent. He 
was regarded as a visionary, and his railroad as a joke. 

Yet by one expedient or another they managed to raise 
the money and to push their lines of steel across moun- 
tains and deserts, often through miles of unexplored 
territory. 

The public might laugh at the idea of four local shop- 
keepers trying to build a railroad across the continent; 

6 


but the work once begun was continued without cessation. 
From the day that Stanford threw that shovelful of sand 
into that Sacramento mud-hole, the operations of the 
“Hardware Crowd” never stopped. They built 530 miles 
of railroad on a shoestring; carried it over mountains 
10,000 feet high, through fifteen tunnels ; kept 10,000 
men and 1,300 teams busy every day and faithfully met 
their pay-rolls; they brought every pound of iron that 
went into the road 19,000 miles from New York to San 
Francisco; they had at times as many as thirty shiploads 
of rails at sea at once; twenty-five saw-mills at Truckee 
worked up their timber. Constantly they were hard- 
pressed for funds ; they found it easier to skin a flint than 
to get money out of banks and capitalists; they emptied 
their own pockets, scraped the till of the hardware store, 
and at one time were even on the point of selling their 
franchise. 


AGAINST A THOUSAND ODDS. 

To the financial problems were added those of actual 
construction through a practically unknown and forbid- 
ding country. Avalanches and land-slides often wiped 
out in a moment the patient work of weeks. Their 
laborers were subjected to extremes of heat and cold. 
Their surveying parties — the pioneers of the railroad — 
were obliged to “feel” their way through trackless wastes 
and blaze a trail for the army of builders which was 
constantly urging them on from the rear. 

And while they waged war with uncompromising 
nature, they encountered at every turn the hostility of 
bad Indians and worse white men. It almost seemed as 
though the West regarded the railroad enterprise as a 
struggle for conquest, and felt that its success would be 
subjugation and the end of the old, wild freedom. 

Again and again the construction camps were raided. 
Men were killed, horses and mules were stolen, tracks 
were torn up, and bridges destroyed. At “the front,” as 
it was called, where grading and track-laying were in 
progress it was necessary to maintain an armed force to 
protect the laborers from these forays, and frequently 
companies of soldiers from neighboring forts and army 
posts were called upon for aid. 

7 


But, in spite of obstacles and discouragements, the 
'‘Hardware Crowd’' built their railroad — performing 
miracles, as one of them said, 365 times a year for six 
long years — and thereby added the keystone which 
sealed and solidified the completed arch of National 
Union. 

THE GOLDEN SPIKE 

The goal was at last achieved May loth, 1869, when at 
Promontory Point, Utah, Leland Stanford, as President 
of the Central Pacific, drove home the last spike which 
was of pure gold and had been presented by the State 
of California, thus connecting the eastern and western 
divisions of the road across the continent. 

A great crowd was present at the meeting place to 
witness these final ceremonies, the spectators coming in 
special trains over the Union Pacific from the east, and 
over the Central Pacific from the west. The United 
States Government was represented by a detachment of 
soldiers from the regular army, and the assemblage which 
gathered in the open space where the tracks joined in- 
cluded, beside the tourists brought in by the railroads 
and the military element, Chinese, Mexicans, Indians, 
miners, ranchmen, gamblers, and the Irish and negro 
laborers, thus giving to it all the color that the West had 
at her command. The picturesque scene has been com- 
memorated in Bret Harte’s poem, “What the Engines 
Said.” 

FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN. 

But it was not only at Promontory Point that the event 
was celebrated. A country waited in breathless interest, 
and the blows of the hammer that drove the golden spike 
served as a signal through telegraphic communication to 
open simultaneous celebrations all over the nation. 

In San Francisco, corresponding blows were struck on 
the bell of the City Hall ; business was suspended ; build- 
ings were decked with flags and bunting ; and illumina- 
tions lighted up the city at night. The celebration lasted 
two days. 

At Omaha, the eastern terminus, there was a salute of 
one hundred guns and a great procession. 

A similar celebration was held in Chicago, supple- 

8 


mented by an address by the Vice President of the 
United States. 

In New York the Te Deum was chanted in the 
churches, and the chimes of Trinity, after the serv- 
ices there were over, rang out “Old Hundred,” the 
Ascension Carol and National Hymns. Here also a 
hundred guns announced the completion of the railroad. 

Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, in speaking 
of the event declared it as marking an epoch of human 
progress second only to that of our Declaration of 
Independence. 

The story of this railroad binding together the East 
and the West and thus cementing our national union 
is in effect a great American epic, replete with a thousand 
thrills, full of individual achievement, heroic self-sac- 
rifice, danger, adventure and romance. Through it 
appear most of the great historic figures of the time, 
Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Fremont the Path- 
finder, John Brown of Osawatomie, Gen. G. M. Dodge, 
Oakes Ames, Jay Gould, “Jim” Fisk, Thomas G. Durant, 
Brigham Young, the head of the Mormon Church, Gen. 
Robert E. Lee, financiers, soldiers, public men. Senators 
and Members of Congress, and of course the “Hardware 
Crowd,” Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford and Crocker. 
Indeed, it has been said that this accomplishment was 
less like a commercial enterprise than a great melodrama 
for which the stage was a continent and the audience a 
nation. 

It is, moreover, the one big episode in American life 
which remains as yet untouched by stage or motion pic- 
ture producers. 

As the foundation for a richly-colored spectacle and 
the background of a romantic human-interest story, the 
building of the first transcontinental railroad possesses 
extraordinary dramatic significance and appeal ; and the 
endeavor has been made in the succeeding synopsis not 
only to picture accurately the inception, scope and 
progress of the wonderful enterprise, but also through 
the love idyll of the young Eastern engineer and the 
Western dancer to suggest something of its deeper 
meaning and purpose in the history of the Nation. 


9 


THE STORY 


THE PATHFINDER OF THE ROCKIES. 

All night above their rocky bed 
They saw the stars march slow; 

The wild Sierra overhead, 

The desert’s death below. 

The Indian from his lodge of bark, 

The gray bear from his den, 

Beyond their camp-fire’s wall of dark. 

Glared on the mountain men. 

Rise up, Fremont, and go before! 
The hour must have its man ; 

Put on your hunting-shirt once more, 
And lead in Freedom’s van. 

Whittier. 

A great stretch of empty prairie. On the crest of a 
low ridge stands a mounted Indian motionless against 
the sky-line, gazing from under his uplifted hand. 

From the distance approaches a little straggling line 
of white men. It is Lieutenant John Charles Fremont 
with his forty-two followers — the first expedition which 
made a comprehensive exploration and survey of the 
West. 

As they come on, the Indian sees, as in a prophetic 
vision, the advancing civilization of the East — a city of 
sky-scrapers, and factories, and grain elevators, and 
churches, and school-houses, rising mirage-like in the haze 
about them. 

The Indian shakes his fist, wheels his pony, and gal- 
lops away. 

Fremont continues his march. He reaches South Pass 
in the Rockies, and climbs the mountain 13,000 feet high 
which now bears his name. He and a young associate, 
Theodore D. Judah, reach the summit first and raise 
there the American Flag, taking possession of all that 
region in the name of the United States. 

10 


THE WINNING OF CALIFORNIA. 

Still Westward marches Fremont. He crosses the 
Sierras, and descends their western slope into California, 
then a territory or Mexico. 

At the town of Sonoma the feeling between the Amer- 
ican settlers and their swaggering Mexican officials has 
grown acute. The Mexican colonel in charge of the 
garrison insults a white woman, and the Americans rise 
in revolt. 

Driving the Mexican soldiers before them, they gain 
the plaza and there pull down the Mexican colors and 
raise their own, a flag of red and white stripes with a 
single star and a bear in one corner, and across it the 
words, “Republic of California.” 

But the revolutionists exult too soon. The Mexicans 
who have taken refuge in the wine-shop and inn kept by 
Pedro De Leon, a Spaniard, hang out a flag of truce, 
and ask for a parley to discuss terms of surrender. This 
proves, however, to be only a characteristically treacher- 
ous ruse, for while the American leaders are in confer- 
ence they are shot down, and their followers taken off 
guard are attacked by a force which has issued from the 
rear of De Leon’s place. 

The plaza with its fluttering flag becomes the scene of 
a savage battle in which the Americans, leaderless and 
taken by surprise, would undoubtedly have been wiped 
out, had it not been for the opportune arrival of Fremont 
and his expedition. 

Learning of the impending trouble at Sonoma and 
wishing to be of aid to his countrymen, he has made a 
forced march down from the mountains, and now 
promptly taking command of the situation succeeds in 
completely routing the Mexicans. 

The Americans gather about Fremont in the plaza, 
overwhelming him with expressions of gratitude, but 
he points to their flag overhead and frowns. He urges 
that the American flag be hoisted in its place, and that 
instead of forming a small, weak republic of their own, 
they come into the Union, adding their lone star to the 
others already on the flag. 

Persuaded by his arguments, they assent. The bear 

II 


flag is exchanged for the National emblem, and Fremont 
in the name of the United States declares the freedom 
of California from Mexico. 

A DAUGHTER OF THE OLD WEST. 

Meanwhile De Leon, the treacherous Spaniard, has 
been dragged from his wine-shop, and with the rude 
justice of pioneer days is about to be strung up. 

His wife, American by birth and a woman of the 
frontier, goes to Joseph P. Sawyer, a teamster of the 
place, and frantically begs him to save her husband’s 
life. She has their little two-year-old daughter at her 
side, and Sawyer, influenced by the beauty and charm of 
the child, consents to intervene. 

He urges upon those about to hang De Leon that the 
Spaniard should be given a fair trial, and the prisoner 
is accordingly locked up until the following day. 

That night, however. Sawyer secretly releases De Leon 
and sends him away with his wife and daughter. By 
sunrise they are far up in the mountains. Sonoma lies 
in the valley below them with the American flag floating 
over it. 

De Leon turning for a last look at the home from which 
he has been driven, sees the hated emblem, and cursing, 
shakes his fist at it. Then lifting his little daughter, he 
makes her also shake her tiny fist and swear an eternal 
enmity. 

This passionate hatred of the flag and of all that the 
flag stands for, thus early instilled into the little Tulita, 
became as she grew up a part of her character, coloring 
her thoughts and actions. 

With her mingled strains of Spanish and American 
blood, she stands in the story as the representative of 
the old West, generous to a fault, fascinating in all her 
moods, but wayward and resentful of any check or re- 
straint upon her wild freedom. 

The spirit of the East, constructive, conservative, 
zealous for law and order, is typified in Jack Morey, 
whose New England parents imbued with the pioneer 
idea have moved westward by successive stages. 

When Jack is about fourteen they are settled on an 
Ohio sheep farm, where the opportunities for education 
12 


are limited. The boy, however, is able to borrow a few 
books, and like Lincoln, eagerly studies them by fire- 
light at night, or when minding his sheep by day. 

It is a time, though, when history is being rapidly made. 
The Kansas-Nebraska free-soil agitation is on, and the 
Abolitionists are straining every energy to fill the dis- 
puted territory with settlers of their persuasion. 

ON TO KANSAS. 

Elisha Morey, Jack’s father, on a visit to their nearest 
town, sees prominently displayed one of the posters of 
a Kansas Emigration Society with a crowd gathered 
about it. Through this crowd moves a tall, gaunt figure 
with a long, gray beard, dressed like a well-to-do farmer 
with trousers stuffed into his boots. It was the famous 
John Brown. 

Morey stops to hear him as he strenuously exhorts 
first one and then another of his neighbors to join the 
westward exodus. Carried away by Brown’s appeal, 
Morey decides to join one of the parties for the frontier. 
He returns home and Brown accompanies him. 

Jack mets them at the gate and eagerly introduces 
Theodore D. Judah, who was last seen with the Fremont 
expedition. Jack tells his father that Judah is doing 
sorne surveying in the neighborhood, and wants him to 
go around with him as an assistant and thus learn the 
profession. He pleads tO' be allowed to do so. 

When he learns of his father’s determination to pull 
up stakes and move on, he passionately begs to be left 
behind. Seeing at last that his father is inflexible, he 
rushes behind the barn, and throwing himself on the 
ground, bursts into tears. 

Meanwhile Judah talks to Brown and Morey, and be- 
comes induced to join the party. He seeks Jack out, 
and comforts him by telling his decision. 

The start is quickly made. With their household goods 
and families the party travels by canal boat and river 
steamer to St. Louis. There they make arrangements 
with Joseph P. Sawyer, who is now conducting ox-trains 
to and from the frontier to transport them to their 
destination. 

In the caravan which sets out are Pedro De Leon and 

13 


his family. De Leon after being driven from California 
drifted up to St. Louis where he becomes known as a 
somewhat shady gambler. He is now being sent out as 
a spy by the Missouri politicians to advise them of the 
number and activities of the Free-Soil settlers. 

Tulita, now a girl of eleven, and Jack are thrown to- 
gether a good deal on the journey, and a strong friend- 
ship grows up between the studious boy and the wilfull, 
mischievous child. She accepts his protection and yet 
in a way resents it, taking delight in continually annoying 
and teasing him with impish tricks and pranks. 

On one occasion they have gone ahead of the wagon 
train on their ponies and come to a broad, rapid stream. 

Tulita is for crossing it at once, but Jack cautiously 
urges her to wait until the wagons come up. She sneers 
at his cowardice, and with reckless defiance lashes her 
pony into the water. The pony soon gets beyond its depth, 
and in its flounderings Tulita is thrown ofif and is in 
danger of being swept away. Jack rushes to her as- 
sistance, and after a hard fight succeeds in rescuing her, 
although losing one of the ponies. Then when the 
wagons come up, he insists on taking all the blame for 
the misadventure. 

The party proceeds on its way, and eventually arrives 
at Locust Bend, in Eastern Kansas, where they decide to 
establish a trading post and settlement. 

THE HOMESTEAD OF THE FREE. 

“We tread the prairies of old 
Our Fathers sailed the sea, 

And make the West, as they the East, 

The homestead of the free. 

“We go to rear a wall of men 
On Freedom's southern line. 

And plant beside the cotton-tree 
The rugged Northern pine.” 

Whittier. 

The site selected, the Emigrants speedily set about 
laying out a town and erecting their homes. By all 
joining together and with a series of old-fashioned log- 
rollings, the cabins and shacks which serve as houses are 
speedily put up. 


14 


While this is being done, a party of Missouri border 
ruffians come riding up, two or three in number. They 
stop at the shack in which De Leon has set up a rude 
bar, and as they drink fraternize with him. 

Then they step out and insolently accost Judah who 
with Jack as his assistant is superintending the building 
of the houses, and ask him what he is doing. 

“We are building a town,” says Judah. 

“You’ll never live to get it finished,” they threaten. 

Judah draws himself up. “We are prepared,” he says 
quietly, “not to die alone.” Before this spirit of calm 
courage, the ruffians quail, and mounting their horses 
ride away. 

Jack who has listened to the colloquy hurries off and 
brings from among his father’s household goods an 
American flag, and asks Judah to put it up. Judah as- 
sents, and stopping the work upon the houses, has the 
men bring in and set up a tall flag-pole. 

It is a picturesque scene as the colors are hoisted upon 
this. The flag-pole stands in the center of the uncom- 
pleted settlement in an open space before a large log 
building in which Elisha Morey has opened a general 
store to supply not only the residents of Locust Bend 
with their household needs and farm implements, but 
also to trade with the Indians and the freighters arriving 
and departing with their ox-trains over the Salt Lake 
trail to the Northwest. 

While the flag-pole is being cut and brought in, the 
freighters of the ox-trains indulge in pioneer sports with 
buckskin-clad hunters and trappers who have come to the 
settlement to trade. There are contests of horsemanship 
and m.arksmanship, wrestling matches and pitching of 
quoits. De Leon’s bar and gambling place a little further 
along does a rushing business. Indians from the neighbor- 
ing agencies stolidly look on. 

But when the flag is raised, all gather around the pole, 
and led by Jack wave their hats and cheer. De Leon 
only is not present. He crouches back scowling behind 
his bar. 

Tulita also is not there. She is off in the woods play- 
ing with her doll. When she returns home toward sunset, 
the open space in front of the store is empty. All the 

15 


men have knocked off work, and the freighters have gone 
to look after their teams and cook their supper. But the 
tall pole stands there with the flag floating from it. 

As Tulita sees this her face darkens and she flames 
into rage. Tossing aside her doll, she rushes into her 
father’s shack, seizes his rifle, and staggering out with 
it, shoots at the flag. 

Her first shot tears a hole in the flag; her second cuts 
the halyards and brings it fluttering down. 

Jack who is in the store studying a book with Judah 
rushes out at the sound of the shots, and when he sees 
what she has done is bitterly incensed. He wrests the 
rifle away from her. 

Then as he mends the broken halyard and prepares 
to raise the flag again, he tells her to go away. She is 
a traitor, and he doesn’t want anything more to do with 
her. Tulita marches away with her head in the air, but 
when she is in the shack out of sight she flings herself 
down in a passion of tears. 

Later in the evening a crowd gathers in front of the 
store again, and a preacher who has arrived on horse- 
back. He shows a newspaper which contains an account 
of the possibility of raids into Kansas by Anti-Union 
sympathizers from Missouri, and it is hinted that the 
raiders mean to concentrate at Randall’s Creek, another 
trading post about twenty-five or thirty miles east of 
Locust Bend. 

Randall’s Creek is shown to be a settlement somewhat 
similar to Locust Bend, but less primitive in general 
aspect. The houses are generally of dressed boards, 
only a few log cabins remaining here and there. The 
store is a plain frame building, and the men and women 
in it are obviously of the farming type, with other men 
scattered among them wearing black frock coats, soft black 
hats, long hair and goatees. Most of the men are armed, 
some with rifles and some with revolvers and bowie 
knives. Outside the store are farm-wagons, and men 
on horseback. Occasionally others ride up, one or two 
or three at a time. 

The report of an attack upon such a considerable place 
as this causes great excitement at Locust Bend, and the 

i6 


crowd gathers eagerly around the preacher with the 
newspaper. 

High feeling is manifested, and a number of heated 
political arguments and some actual fights occur between 
Union and Anti-Union adherents. 

The preacher who is himself of pronounced Anti- 
Union sentiments does not hesitate to express himself 
and evidently makes a good deal of an impression until 
Judah enters into debate with him. Judah swings the crowd 
his way by pointing to the flag and quoting Webster’s 
immortal words: 

“Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and insepar- 
able!” 

Meanwhile, Sawyer has arrived in town with his ox- 
train bound for a journey to the far West. He pays 
little attention to the discussion in front of the store, 
but goes on to De Leon’s place. He stops a moment 
in the bar where faro and poker games are in progress, 
and then goes back into the living quarters to greet Mrs. 
De Leon and Tulita. 

Tulita, who regards vSawyer as a sort of foster-father, 
is overjoyed to see him, and welcomes him rapturously. 
He gives her a large bag of candy. 

With this, she presently starts out to make her peace 
with Jack and edging up to him in the crowd offers it 
to him. But Jack is not yet ready to forgive her for the 
insult to the flag. Besides, he is deeply absorbed in the 
debate between Judah and the preacher. He shakes his 
head impatiently, and tells her not to bother him. Tulita 
again flies into a temper and stamps her foot. 

And now the debate ends in favor of Judah. The 
crowd with Jack joining in vociferously hoot the dis- 
credited advocate of Anti-Union away; and the preacher 
leaving the store slips stealthily to the rear of De Leon's 
shack, and taps on the door. 

De Leon, who is dealing faro at the time, surrenders 
his place and goes out to meet the preacher. They talk 
with heads close together, and De Leon gives the preacher 
a paper on which he has listed the number of men and 
of arms in the settlement together with other informa- 
tion which will be of advantage to a raiding party. 

17 


Then the preacher steals back to where his horse is 
picketed, mounts, and rides away. 

On his road he comes to an isolated cabin where the 
three border ruffians whom Judah so bravely answered 
that day have halted. The ruffians have just succeeded 
in murdering the settler and his family and are now 
engaged in looting the cabin. The preacher warmly con- 
gratulates them on their work, and shakes their gory 
hands. 

He continues on to Randall’s Creek, where he meets 
an army of several hundred raiders advancing with a 
brass cannon, and delivers to their leader the informa- 
tion which he has received in regard to Locust Bend 
from De Leon. 

The leader on receipt of this at once orders a raid 
upon that settlement, and his forces start in that direc- 
tion. 

John Yelton, a Union settler, who is spying on the 
raiders from a thicket, hearing this order, worms him- 
self away and getting his horse gallops off like another 
Paul Revere to warn his neighbors of the threatened 
invasion. 

So the night passes. In the morning Locust Bend 
awakes, utterly unconscious of the menace which hangs 
over it. 

Judah comes over to Morey’s store early to get Jack 
to assist him in surveying a farm on the outskirts of the 
settlement, and the two start out. 

As they pass De Leon’s place, Tulita comes running 
out and wants to go along with them ; but Jack still angry 
with her refuses and waves her back. 

She follows them at a little distance, furious at his 
rebuff, and when they begin to run their lines, tries to 
get even by pulling up the stakes they set and throwing 
them away. 

Presently Jack discovers this, and with a shout starts 
back toward her. But Tulita runs away into a patch 
of woodland, and he does not pursue her. 

On the other side of the woodland is the open prairie, 
and as she comes out on this Tulita sees a horseman 
riding furiously toward her. It is John Yelton, the “Paul 

i8 


Revere” who is warning the settlers of the approach of 
the raiders. 

He reins in at the sight of Tulita, and asks her ex- 
citedly if any of the men of Locust Bend are about. She 
tells him there are two on the other side of the woods, 
Judah and Jack Morey. 

Yelton tears a leaf from his pocket-book, scribbles 
across it in pencil ; “The raiders have started for Locust 
Bend. Prepare,” and handing it to Tulita tells her to 
give it to Judah. Then he gallops away to carry his 
warning to other settlements. 

Tulita stands watching him until he disappears. She 
starts to take the paper to Judah and Jack, but stops and 
reconsiders. Here is an opportunity to repay Jack for 
his slights. She will show him, she declares, and tears 
the paper into bits. 

Meanwhile the raiders are coming on, the preacher 
riding with their leader at the head of the column to 
point the way. 

Just before they reach the settlement, they come to a 
log cabin. The settler’s wife with her son, a barefoot 
boy of eight or nine, comes to the door and sees the 
advancing horde. She starts with her boy to run toward 
the trading post; but the preacher drawing a revolver 
shoots her down in the road. The boy, however, es- 
capes and succeeds in reaching Morey’s store and giving 
the alarm. 

Instantly the place is in a turmoil. Men seize their 
weapons, and start to meet the invaders. Others barri- 
cade the buildings, and roll up logs to serve as breast- 
works. The freighters hurriedly yoke up their ox-teams, 
and start to get out of the way of danger. 

At the edge of the settlement there is a lively brush 
between the vanguard of the raiders and a little group 
of the hastily-assembled defenders. 

Jack and Judah out surveying in the field hear the ex- 
change of shots. They pause a moment, then realizing 
what it means, shoulder their instruments and start on a 
run for the town. 

By the time that they reach it, the advance guard of 
settlers has been driven as far back as Morey’s store and 
are in evident confusion. 


19 


Judah promptly takes command, and rallying his men, 
prepares to make a stand. Jack who has seized a rifle 
fights gallantly at his side. For a time the defenders 
fighting from a barricade of logs are able to hold their 
own, but eventually the raiders maneuver the cannon 
they have brought with them into position, and begin 
battering down this shield. Jack’s father and a number 
of the other men are killed and Judah realizing that his 
position is no longer tenable orders a retreat. Stubbornly 
fighting, the little band of settlers is driven back out of 
the village into the woods, while the raiders spreading 
out through the settlement, burn, loot and murder, butch- 
ering men, women and children indiscriminately. 

As Jack dodges here and there through the woods, 
taking cover behind trees and continuing to fire at the 
enemy, he comes upon Tulita crouched down in a thicket. 
Seeing the scene of slaughter and realizing that she is 
largely to blame for it, she is overcome with remorse; 
and when Jack, forgetting their differences, speaks to 
her encouragingly and seeks to give her protection, she 
clings passionately to him and sobbingly confesses that 
she destroyed Yelton’s warning. Horrified Jack recoils 
from her, but before he can utter the reproaches that 
are on his tongue, a bunch of raiders charge the spot 
where they are standing. In the resultant mUee two 
of them seize Tulita and drag her away. Jack leaps 
after them and clubbing his rifle, rescues the girl. Judah 
and some of the settlers come up just then and drive 
away the other raiders. 

The shots of the raiders are whistling through the 
woods, though, and Jack and Judah with Tulita between 
them go farther back among the trees. At one point 
they come out on the edge of the prairie at the back 
of the woods, and see in the distance Sawyer’s ox-train 
lumbering off toward the west. 

As they stand there, they see Sawyer come riding 
back on horseback, with De Leon and his wife also 
mounted. The father and mother having missed Tulita 
supposed she might have gone off with the ox-train, and 
started after it. Learning that she is not there, however, 
both they and Sawyer become seriously alarmed, and are 
galloping back to the settlement to search for her. 

20 


Judah signals to them from the edge of the wood, and 
they ride thither. Sawyer who is riding a splendid horse 
shows his intense relief. He leaps oif, and catches Tulita 
up in his arms. 

An idea strikes Judah. '‘We need help badly, he 
tells Sawyer. “Can’t I hire you to ride to John Brown 
and get him to come to our assistance?” 

He offers Sawyer all the money he has to do this and 
even adds his watch, but the freighter refuses. He indi- 
cates that the mission is too dangerous for him to under- 
take. Judah and the little knot of settlers are greatly 
cast down at this, but Tulita sidling up to Jack whispers 
to him not to despair. 

Then before any one can interfere, she springs on the 
back of Sawyer’s horse, and dashes away. It is idle 
to pursue her on horses so much slower, and the dis- 
comfited Sawyer and De Leon can only let her go. 

She rides madly through the ranks of the raiders, 
escaping unhurt, and while Judah and his men continue 
their losing battle, dashes on. 

She finds John Brown in his shirt-sleeves cooking din- 
ner in his cabin. At her message, though, he sets aside 
the skillet in which he is frying eggs, and putting on a 
long, linen duster and wide straw hat, goes out to sum- 
mon his men. 

The Brown party starts off, and reaches Locust Bend 
about four o’clock in the afternoon, effecting a com- 
plete surprise. Brown fights his men Indian-fashion 
from behind cover, but seems himself to scorn danger, 
striding up and down his lines in his flapping, linen 
duster, an easy target yet seeming to bear a charmed 
life. Brown’s linen duster and straw hat are historically 
famous. 

Caught between two fires, the raiders are decisively 
defeated and flee in all directions. The settlers regain 
the village, but only to find it a wreck. Practically the 
only house left standing is De Leon’s. 

Upon the preacher who has been taken prisoner is 
found the information which he received from De Leon, 
the lists of arms, men, etc., at Locust Bend. Enraged at 
this discovery of De Leon as a spy, the settlers search 
for him and destroy his cabin. 

21 


Then the word gets out that De Leon has gone off 
with Sawyer’s ox-train, and a party of grim-faced men 
start after him. Jack who has found Tulita in the rear 
of Brown’s men comes up with her in time to hear this. 

She turns on him bitterly at the sight of her home 
being pulled down by the settlers. 

‘‘So that is the thanks I get for saving you and your 
side,” she exclaims. “You have destroyed my home, and 
now you are going to lynch my father.” 

Jack makes an appeal to John Brown to spare De 
Leon for Tulita’s sake, and the leader consenting arrives 
with Jack and Tulita at the ox-train, just as De Leon 
half-dead with fright is being pulled from the bottom of 
one of the wagons. 

Brown tells his men to let De Leon go, but sternly 
informs the Spaniard that he must leave Kansas. Sawyer 
says he will take the family on to California with him, 
and it is so arranged. Jack and Tulita bid each other 
farewell, and she leaves with Sawyer for the long journey 
across the plains. 

There is nothing any longer to hold Jack in Locust 
Bend. His home is in ruins, his parents are dead; so 
when Judah shows him a letter offering a position with 
a surveying corps on a projected railroad in Illinois, he 
accepts. 

Shortly after he and Judah enter upon this new work, 
they happen to be in Springfield, 111., on the occasion of 
one of the series of famous debates between Abraham 
Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. 

The town is full of people who have flocked in from 
neighboring towns and villages and from all the sur- 
rounding country-side; and as the hour for the meeting 
arrives, thousands press about the bunting-decked stand 
where the orators are to speak. 

Jack and Judah make their way through picnicking 
groups and a multitude of farm-wagons and vehicles of 
all descriptions in the grove where the stand has been 
erected, and edge their way in close to the speakers. 

Douglas, the “Little Giant,” is seated on the platform, 
wearing the tall high hat, frock coat and statesman’s 
frown of the period. Lincoln, tall and ungainly, rises to 
speak. 


22 


His subject is the Preservation of the Union, and he 
sketches the successive steps by which that Union has 
been built up and achieved. 

The actual scene about them fades to Jack’s eyes as 
he listens to that high-pitched, eloquent voice, and in- 
stead he sees a picture of old Independence Hall at Phil- 
adelphia and the Fathers of the Republic signing the 
Declaration of Independence, with its impressive con- 
cluding words: 

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm 
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mu- 
tually pledge our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred 
Honor.” , 

The picture fades, and Jack again sees Lincoln speak- 
ing. But it is only to have another vision called before 
him, that of the Convention which adopted the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. 

George Washington, as presiding officer of the con- 
vention, holds out in his hand a thick document on the 
first page of which appears the famous preamble : 

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form 
a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic 
tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the 
general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to 
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution for the United States of America.” 

The delegates rise and signify their unanimous assent, 
and again the picture fades. 

(Other pictures showing the growth and progress of 
the Union may be presented here in the same way as may 
be deemed advisable. Suitable subjects would be, the 
Inauguration of President Washington; the Louisiana 
Purchase with Jefferson affixing his signature to the 
treaty ; the Seminole War in Florida ; the trial of Aaron 
Burr at Richmond; the settlement of the Northwest 
Territoi*y at Marietta; the opening up of Kentucky by 
Daniel Boone; the Battle of New Orleans and Perry’s 
victory on Lake Erie; the Massacre of the Alamo; 
Scott’s entry into the City of Mexico ; the gold discovery 
in California.) 

The scene ends, however, with Lincoln closing his 
address, and his own words should be presented: 

23 


“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the 
house to fall — I do expect it will cease to be divided.” 

Jack is tremendously impressed by Lincoln’s speech, 
and goes back to his work thrilled and exalted. 

He and Judah reach their surveying camp about sun- 
set. There Judah finds a letter awaiting him. It is the 
offer of a position as chief engineer of the Sacramento 
Valley Railroad in California. 

Judah’s correspondent writes that the position will 
entail considerable hardship and possibly some danger. 
“We are rough and somewhat uncivilized out here,” he 
says, “and the old Mexican population is still more or 
less hostile. Divided from you of the East by thou- 
sands of miles, we are in the Union but not of it.” 

Judah shows the letter to Jack as they sit outside their 
tent on the prairie. A train of prairie schooners is lum- 
bering along in the distance. 

“We talk of building a Union,” says Judah with a 
significant wave of the hand toward the West. “A house 
divided against itself cannot stand!” 

Jack gazes thoughtfully away toward the horizon. 
Then a sudden inspiration comes to him. His imagina- 
tion sees the train of prairie schooners lumbering off 
into the sunset transformed to a railroad train rolling 
along past 'lines of telegraph poles. 

Springing to his feet, he stands staring at the vision. 
Then as he points, he quotes Lincoln back in answer to 
Judah. 

“The house must cease to be divided,” he cries. “A 
railroad! That will unite the East and the West.” 

Judah shakes his head. The difficulties in the way 
seem insuperable to him. But gradually as Jack con- 
tinues to urge his idea, he too becomes fired with 
enthusiasm. 

He decides to accept the California position, and while 
there to study the possibilities of a railroad to the East. 
He promises Jack that he will send for him when he is 
ready to go actively into the project. 

Meanwhile, Tulita having crossed the plains has set- 
tled with her parents at Dutch Flat, a village at the foot 
of the Sierras. Here De Leon sets up a gambling place 
24 


and dance hall. One of the musicians employed by him 
is an old Mexican fiddler, and observing Tulita’s natural 
grace and litheness he occupies his off-moments in teach- 
ing her to dance. Under his tuition she develops a 
wonderful talent for dancing, and this is encouraged by 
her avaricious father, since although she is capricious 
and apt to refuse to dance except when she feels like it, 
her appearances always serve to draw money to his place. 

Sawyer, who is now operating a line of mule trains 
between San Francisco, Sacramento and Virginia City, 
Nevada, is a frequent visitor to the place, and also takes 
great delight in Tulita's dancing, showering her with gold- 
pieces when she finishes. He is exceedingly prosperous, 
and becoming somewhat influential in the politics of the 
West, has obtained in connection with his freighting busi- 
ness a valuable Government contract to carry the mails. 

Tulita and he still maintain their old affection for 
each other, but on Sawyer’s part, as she grows older and 
begins to develop a more womanly beauty, this becomes 
something more sentimental than his former semi- 
fatherly devotion to a pretty and engaging child. Al- 
though almost twenty years her senior, he looks forward 
to the day when he shall make her his wife. His unchang- 
ing love for her is indeed the one soft spot in Sawyer’s 
hard, masterful character. He is reckoned a “square 
man” according to the code of the frontier, but he has 
been trained in the school of hard knocks, and will balk 
at little when he wishes to gain his ends. 

He insists, however, that Tulita shall receive absolute 
respect from the rough and lawless characters at Dutch 
Flat, and these men, among whom is Bill Pate, leader 
of the raid on Locust Bend but now a typical Western 
bad man, know better than to cross his wishes. 

She is also carefully guarded by her father and mother ; 
but stronger than any of these precautions are the girl’s 
own pride and fastidiousness, which serve to keep her 
aloof and apart from the vicious influences that surround 
her. 

So two years pass. Jack Morey, steadily advancing 
in his profession, is called to the headquarters at Chicago 
of the railroad upon which he has been employed, and 
is offered a splendid promotion. But on entering the 

25 


offices a letter is handed him. It is from Judah and says 
that the latter is ready now to investigate the question^ of 
a transcontinental railroad, and wants Jack to join him. 

Jack does not hesitate a moment. He declines the 
flattering offer to stay in Chicago, and makes ready to 
leave at once for the West. 

He travels across the country on horseback and with 
an emigrant train; but when he arrives at Dutch Flat 
where he expected to meet Judah, he finds that the latter 
is up in the mountains on a surveying expedition. He 
therefore decides to stay at Dutch Flat and await Judah’s 
return. 

At De Leon’s place, he meets Tulita again. She is 
filled with joy at seeing him, and he is delighted and im- 
pressed with the growth of her beauty. He occupies his 
time during his period of waiting for Judah in playing 
school-master to her, and gives her lessons in a small, 
sequestered grove on the edge of the settlement. 

She learns with avidity, and appears almost tractable, 
until one day when Morey expresses disapproval of her 
appearing in the dance hall. Then her quick anger flares, 
and to annoy him she mounts her pony and rides off 
unaccompanied into the mountains. Her absence when 
discovered causes alarm, and a search is organized. She 
is found at last by Morey far from all trails and crouch- 
ing desolate and frightened on a high ledge of rock. 

She clings to Morey sobbing out her contrition ; but 
he, although rejoiced to find her, has looked down from 
the precipice, and sees below them a hitherto undiscov- 
ered natural pass through the range. He is stunned for 
a moment by a realization of what this means, and 
stands gazing down, oblivious to her as with the keen 
eye of an engineer he studies out its possibilities. 

Tulita cannot understand his abstraction. She ques- 
tions him. Then he points out to her that this is the 
gateway for a railroad which Judah and his surveyors 
have been seeking. He pictures to her that defile pierced 
by lines of track with passenger and freight trains mov- 
ing swiftly east and west, and their imposing terminals 
in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington and New York. 

Tulita listens without interest. She resents his en- 
26 


grossment. And now is born her jealous hatred of the 
railroad which is to increase as she grows older. 

She urges him to take her home, and as he reluctantly 
turns from the vista she points out to him the smoke of 
a camp-fire rising from among the trees a little distance 
away. 

Morey raises an halloo, and with an answering hail 
Judah’s surveying party, worn and wasted by the priva- 
tions they have undergone, straggle down to the ledge. 
Morey greets them with joy and shows Judah his dis- 
covery. The new arrivals are wild with enthusiasm, and 
immediately set up their instruments and begin to take 
bearings. 

The other searchers for Tulita come up, including her 
father and Sawyer. Morey with unmistakable relief turns 
Tulita over to them, and remains with the surveying party. 
She is furious at his action, and includes Judah and his 
associates in her displeasure. 

A day or two later, though, when the surveying party 
reaches Dutch Flat, her indignation has subsided and 
she starts out demure and amenable to see Morey and 
resume her lessons. But arriving at the forest nook 
where he and she had held their school, she finds that he 
has set up a drafting board and is busily engaged with 
Judah in plotting their survey. 

The duties which Jack came west to accept have now 
commenced, and he tells Tulita that he will have no more 
time to give to her tuition. She falls into a rage at this, 
and snatching from the board the map he is making 
tears it into fragments. Then in a blaze of vindictive 
anger she rushes back to the settlement. 

At the dance hall she finds her father engaged in a 
serious discussion with Sawyer. 

Sawyer, shrewd enough to see that the railroad if it 
comes will destroy his business, is pointing out to De Leon 
that he will be scarcely less affected, since civilization, 
law and order are bound to follow in the wake. 

Impressed by his arguments, they are debating how 
best to meet the menace when Tulita comes in flouted 
and vengeful as the result of her rebuff from Morey. 

Impatient at their failure to reach a decision, she breaks 
into the conversation and declares that if she were a man 

27 


she would not tamely permit these meddling strangers 
to finish their work, but would drive them out. 

The suggestion appeals to the temper of the men, and 
calling in Bill Pate, Sawyer hires him to organize an 
attack upon the surveyors. 

Pate rounds up a rough crowd and proceeds to mob 
the Judah party with the idea of not only chasing them 
from the place, but also of destroying their instruments 
and records. Judah and his men offer a spirited resist- 
ance ; but hopelessly outnumbered, are finally driven out. 

In a desperate effort to save the maps and field-notes 
of the party Morey becomes separated from the others, 
and closely pursued by the rioters seems certain of cap- 
ture and lynching. 

Tulita with one of her swift changes of feeling con- 
ceals him until the danger is past and he can rejoin his 
companions. 

He tries to thank her, but she tells him she has only 
repaid the obligation he placed her under when he found 
her up in the mountains. Now they are quits, and she 
says passionately that she never wants to see him again. 

Morey impulsively kisses her ; but she slaps him in the 
face and rushes away. He goes on to join the other mem- 
bers of his scattered party. 

Arriving at Sacramento, Judah and his little company 
visit the hardware store of Huntington & Hopkins to 
refit, and happen while there to disclose the enterprise 
upon which they are engaged. 

Huntington to whom the engineers are talking shows 
a lively interest, and calls his partner, Hopkins, and also 
Stanford and Crocker who are in the back of the store. 

Judah exhibits to them his profile maps of the route 
which Morey has managed to save, and the four mer- 
chants are greatly impressed by his explanations. 

In their enthusiasm, they decide to undertake the 
stupendous enterprise of building a transcontinental rail- 
road, and without delay incorporate the Central Pacific 
Railroad Company. 

This was in June, i86i. Fort Sumter had fallen. As 
they leave the hardware store, Morey and Judah see 
excited groups of men in the streets, and obtaining a 
newspaper read President Lincoln's call for volunteers. 

28 


Jack immediately declares his intention to enlist. Judah, 
less youthful and impetuous, remonstrates. He reminds 
Jack of his ambition to work for the building of the 
Union by uniting the East and the West by a railroad, 
and tells him he has made this possible by his discovery 
of the pass through the mountains. He is entitled to full 
credit for the inauguration of the enterprise, and should 
properly devote himself to its completion. 

“To build a greater Union, we must first save what 
we have,” retorts Jack. “If the building of the Union 
is worth working for, its defence is worth fighting for — 
if necessary, dying for.” 

Judah can give no answer to this, and accordingly Jack 
enlists at a neighboring recruiting office. 

Huntington and his associates, spurred on now by 
patriotic motives, take up the railroad project with great 
energy. In the late winter of ’62, Huntington and Judah 
go to Washington to secure legislation to aid in the con- 
struction. 

But they find the Government and its officials thor- 
oughly absorbed in the War. The Secretary of the 
Interior declines to see them, and they are treated with 
scant courtesy by the Secretary of the Congressional 
Committee on Railroads. They see him in his office, 
and find with him Sawyer, who having kept informed of 
their doings has followed them to Washington to oppose 
their plans. He ridicules their scheme and their mission, 
and because of his political influence and his connection 
with the Post Office Department is listened to. 

On this Eastern trip Sawyer has brought with him De 
Leon and Tulita, having induced the girl’s parents to 
place her in a convent at Fredericksburg, Va., and have 
her educated. Tulita is about sixteen at this time and 
very attractive. 

The cold reception given Huntington and Judah in 
Washington and the obstacles thrown in their way suc- 
ceeded in completely disheartening the engineer, and even 
Huntington’s indomitable spirit is dampened. There 
seems nothing that they can do in Washington at the 
present time, and they therefore prepare to return to 
to the West. 

At the last moment as they are about to leave the 
29 


Willard Hotel, their bags in hand, Huntington sees on 
the register the name of Thomas C. Durant, a New York 
banker who has been active in the building of certain 
railroads leading out of Chicago. 

They abandon their plans for departure, and seek out 
Durant. He becomes interested, and consents to join 
forces with them. Durant arranges a meeting with 
Senator James Harlan of Iowa. The result is that they 
are invited to lay their plans before a committee of the 
Senate. 

Sawyer manages to be present at this conference, and 
fearful of his mail contracts if the railroad should be 
built, takes occasion to deride the project and expose 
the “Hardware Crowd” as a group of small merchants. 
He sneers at their responsibility and financial standing. 

The Senators, influenced by Sawyer’s slurs, prove de- 
cidedly lukewarm, and Harlan to save the situation pro- 
poses that the President shall be consulted. 

After this committee meeting, Huntington and Sawyer 
meet on the steps of the Capitol, and Sawyer anxious 
to prevent the other from seeing the President, tries by 
his insults and abuse to provoke Huntington to a duel. 
Huntington merely laughs at him, treating his bluster 
with cool contempt. 

President Lincoln gives a hearing on the question. 
Huntington and his associates present their proposition, 
while Sawyer and other opponents of the railroad argue 
against it. In the group about Sawyer are De Leon 
and Tulita, whom Sawyer has brought so that she may 
meet the President. 

Lincoln, having heard both sides, thoughtfully con- 
siders the matter. While he is still debating its pros and 
cons, he is interrupted by the arrival of a young officer 
bearing dispatches from General McClellan, and who has 
been sent over from the War Department. It is Jack 
Morey. 

JACK AS A SOLDIER. 

After his enlistment. Jack secured a commission as 
lieutenant of engineers, and has been assigned to the 
engineering corps of the Army of the Potomac which 
now — April, 1862 — is engaged in the Peninsular Cam- 

30 


paign under Gen. McClellan. He has just been actively 
employed in the work of placing siege guns and in re- 
pairing roads and bridges for the transportation of army 
supplies etc. He has been sent to Washington by Mc- 
Clellan to urge the forwarding of new wagon trains and 
larger guns. 

In the interval while he waits for the President to re- 
ceive him he sees Tulita. She looks admiringly at the 
dashing young officer and they greet each other as old 
friends. Jack also shakes hands with Huntington and 
Judah. 

LINCOLN IS CONVINCED. 

After reading Morey’s dispatches, the President re- 
sumes the railroad hearing, listening to a fresh argument 
by Sawyer in opposition, to which he seems to attach 
considerable weight. 

Then Morey, who in the meantime has been consult- 
ing with Huntington and Judah, steps forward and asks 
to be heard. 

He presents the question from a new angle, urging 
the building of the railroad as a military necessity creat- 
ing a highway for the transportation of troops and sup- 
plies, and also as the most efficacious means of holding 
the Pacific coast to the Union. 

This turns the scale with President Lincoln. As Tulita 
sees the efifect of Morey’s argument, her face darkens. 
With the closing of the hearing the disappointed opposi- 
tion starts to leave, Tulita among them. Morey presses 
forward to speak to her, but she turns from him, all 
her recent cordiality congealed to enmity. 

Morey laughingly blows a kiss in her direction, and 
returns to Huntington and Durant, who with the Presi- 
dent converted to their views are now urging him to 
recommend to Congress that the Government shall build 
the railroad. 

But Lincoln declines to do this, for the reason that 
all the resources of the National Treasury are needed at 
present for the prosecution of the War. 

It is then proposed that the Central Pacific shall begin 
to build a road east from Sacramento, and another com- 
pany to be formed shall begin to construct west from 

31 


Omaha, these beginnings to be made with private capital, 
and the Government contributing only when certain por- 
tions of the system are completed and in operation. 

Durant pledges himself that the new company to build 
west shall be formed, and the President suggests as a 
suitable name for it the Union Pacific Railroad, signify- 
ing the union of the Pacific coast with the nation. 

A bill formally embodying this proposition was passed 
by Congress and signed by President Lincoln on July 
1st, 1862. 

Huntington thereupon sent his famous telegram to 
Hopkins, Stanford and Crocker : 

“We have drawn the elephant. Now let us see if we 
can harness him.’* 

HARNESSING THE ELEPHANT. 

Huntington and Judah go on to New York and Boston, 
and visit various financiers in the effort to raise funds 
for their project. But the capitalists of the East are 
skeptical or indifferent, and their mission fails. They 
determine to try the Western moneyed men, and start 
for San Francisco by way of Panama. 

On the journey across the Isthmus, Judah is stricken 
with fever and dies. 

Huntington meets the others of the Hardware Crowd 
in San Francisco. Together they besiege the banks and 
financial institutions of that city, but without success. 
They hold a meeting of the Company, all feeling decidedly 
blue. They seem unable to raise a penny for the enterprise, 
their chief engineer is dead, discouragement faces them 
on every hand. 

Huntington suddenly rises, and smashes his fist down 
on the table. 

“We can make a start anyway on our ow.n resources,*' 
he cries, “even if it is only to build a few feet of track. 
Hopkins and I will mortgage the store for our share," 
he turns to his partner, “won't we, Mark?" 

Hopkins assents, and the other two fired by this ex- 
ample eagerly pledge themselves to contribute every 
penny they possess. 

On this basis they commenced the actual construction 
on New Year's day 1863 by filling in a mud-hole at the 

32 


foot of K street, Sacramento. The four gather around 
the spot, and Stanford shovels some sand into the hole, 
while a crowd of loafers egged on by Sawyer, Pate and 
De Leon jeer at the ceremony. 

But the work thus begun was continued by one means 
or another without ^cessation and against almost in- 
superable difficulties, until the track was completed with 
the joining of the Central and the Union Pacific at 
Promontory Point. 

TULITA AT THE CONVENT. 

Returning now to the time of the hearing given by 
President Lincoln on the railroad question and the 
encounter there between Jack and Tulita, the girl a day 
or two later was installed by Sawyer and De Leon in a 
convent school at Falmouth, Va., directly across the 
Rappahannock river from Fredericksburg, and she 
quickly proves herself a most unruly pupil. Used to 
freedom and having her own way, she finds it hard 
to submit to the rules and restrictions of school life, 
and is almost constantly in hot water. 

Finally having been severely reproved by the Mother 
Superior for some breach of discipline and sent to her 
room, she determines to run away, and climbing out of 
the window swings herself down by clinging to a tree 
branch and lands outside the convent walls. 

The Confederate Army at this time is being con- 
centrated by General Robert E. Lee in and around Fred- 
ericksburg and has taken possession of that town, while 
General McClellan has brought up the Union Army and 
is occupying the north bank of the river, including Fal- 
mouth. 

Consequently Tulita does not wander far before she 
comes to the outskirts of a camp of Union soldiers. The 
men are amusing themselves by tossing shin-plasters 
generously to a group of darkies who are dancing for 
them, and as Tulita has no money to continue her jour- 
ney she resolves to reap some of the harvest. 

She climbs up on the rude platform, and instantly 
captures her audience with her grace and beauty and 
spirit. Then she finishes, the soldiers outdo each other 
in fairly raining money down upon her. She scoops it 

33 


up flushed and laughing, and with a final saucy pirouette 
starts to run away. 

But the soldiers quickly gather around to prevent her 
escape, and one of them tries to kiss her. She struggles 
and tries to break through the ring around her, but 
they hold her. Then becoming frightened, she screams. 

Jack Morey who is acting that night as Officer of the 
Guard and is making his rounds, hears her. He is now 
attached to Gen. Hooker’s Corps, Gen. McClellan hav- 
ing been superseded in the general command by Burn- 
side. 

Hurrying over to investigate the cause of the outcry, 
he sees a girl struggling in the knot of roistering soldiers 
and recognizes her as Tulita. Immediately he dashes 
into the thick of the press, knocking men right and left 
as he does so, and reaching her side orders the men to 
stand back. 

Tulita clings to him in relief, but when he learns 
how she has come there and wants to escort her back 
to the convent, she insists that she will not return. 

While they are discussing the matter an orderly comes 
hurrying up with a message from Gen. Hooker directing 
Jack to report at once at headquarters. He cannot dis- 
obey, and therefore sumiponing a corporal and squad 
orders curtly that Tulita be escorted back to the con- 
vent. But on hearing this, she makes a quick dash to 
get away, and eluding pursuit among the tents, dives 
into an empty one, and there finding a soldier’s uniform 
puts it on and makes her escape unrecognized. 

Satisfied at last that she has outwitted him. Jack gives 
up the search for her, and goes to Gen. Hooker’s tent 
which is pitched on a height overlooking the river and 
the town opposite. 

The General points to a train of pontoons loaded on 
wagons near by, and indicates to Jack that he is to take 
charge of them and construct pontoon bridges across 
the river preparatory to an attack on the Confederate 
Army. 

Jack undertakes the work in the face of a sharp, sus- 
tained fire from the Confederate riflemen concealed in 
the houses along the Fredericksburg bank. This is the 

34 . 


beginning of the Battle of Fredericksburg, Dec. 13, 
1862. 

OPENING THE BATTLE. 

In the face of this fire, the engineers led by Jack push 
the bridges rapidly across the stream. Many of them 
shot down by the Confederates drop on the bridges or 
into the river, but at last the bridges are completed 
ready for the infantry to cross and take possession of 
the landing places. 

Jack constantly under fire directs the construction 
from a rowboat, but is unhit. At last, though, just as 
the last plank is laid, he stands up to step ashore, a 
sharpshooter gets him. He sinks down in the rowboat 
which floats oflf with the current. 

In the confusion of the infantry rush across the bridges 
and the fighting to drive the enemy back into the town, 
his misadventure is unnoticed; and lying in the boat 
wounded and unconscious he is carried down stream 
until the boat finally grounds on the Falmouth shore. 

Tulita, escaping from the camp in her uniform and 
succeeding in running the guard line, has followed a 
path which eventually brings her out on the river bank at 
almost the spot where Jack’s boat has landed. 

She steps down to get into it, then starts back at the 
sight of the crumpled figure. *But recognizing it as Jack, 
she quickly leaps aboard and lifts his head. 

A hasty examination convinces her that he is alive, 
and she hurries off for assistance. The nearest place 
is the Convent, and she loses no time in arousing it, 
heedless of the sensation which her appearance and her 
costume create. 

Moved by her appeal, a number of the Sisters ac- 
company her back to the river with a litter, and bring 
Jack to the Convent. Word of his condition is brought 
to the surgeon of his regiment, and the latter visits 
Jack there with the result that he selects the Convent 
as a hospital, and has the wounded men brought there 
in considerable numbers. 

FURLOUGHED TO THE WEST. 

Shortly after the battle President Lincoln visits the 
Union army at Falmouth, and comes to the Convent to 

35 


see the wounded men who are being nursed there by 
the Sisters and their school girls. 

Passing from room to room, the President comes to 
the one where Jack is lying and starts to enter. Tulita 
who is sitting with him, halts the Presidential party at 
the door. She recognizes Lincoln, but that makes no 
difference to her. Her patient is asleep, and she does 
not propose to have him disturbed. The Mother Superior 
and others with the President are scandalized and try 
to make her stand aside, but Lincoln in his usual tactful 
way bridges the difficulty. He says he will go in alone 
with her, and be very quiet. So on tip-toe he follows 
her to the bedside. 

As he stands gazing down on the wounded officer. 
Jack awakes. The President recognizes him, and re- 
calls the occasion on which they last met at the hearing 
on the transcontinental railroad project. 

‘T want an unbiased report on what is being done 
out there,” he says. ‘T am going to give you a furlough, 
Captain Morey, and ask you to spend your convalescence 
gathering information for me in the West.” 

He calls for a blank furlough from one of his aides, 
and filling it in, hands it to Jack, who shows his delight 
and gratitude at the assignment. 

With this prospect before him. Jack makes a rapid 
recovery and is soon able to travel. When the time comes 
for him to leave, Tulita homesick for the West begs him 
to take her with him; but he insists that she must stay 
on at the school and finish her education. 

Soon after his departure, though. Sawyer comes to 
visit her and when she renews her plea to him, the 
freighter, unable to deny her anything she wishes, con- 
sents and takes her with him. 

At the hotel in Omaha, Jack while seated in the dining 
room is surprised to see Tulita enter with Sawyer, and 
take a table a little distance away. She is dressed in the 
height of fashion, and when he steps up to speak to 
her greets him with an air of radiant triumph. Sawyer 
sits stolid and unfriendly. 

Jack remonstrates with Tulita for leaving the con- 
vent. ‘'Are you willing to give up your education,” he 

36 


asks, ''and go back to your father’s place at Dutch Flat 
to be a dance hall girl ?” 

"She don’t have to be a dance hall girl,” Sawyer breaks 
in gruffly. "She can be Mrs. Joseph P. Sawyer when- 
ever she says the word.” 

Jack starts and bends a questioning glance on Tulita. 
"Is that the programme?” he demands. 

"Why not ?” she gives a toss of her head. "I couldn’t 
find a better man.” 

He takes this as indicating that she does intend to 
marry Sawyer, and merely giving a stiff bow, he returns 
to the group of army officers and railroad men with 
whom he has been dining. 

A GATEWAY THROUGH THE BLACK HILLS. 

This party among whom is General G. M. Dodge are 
just starting for an inspection trip over the line of the 
Union Pacific as far as it is completed; and as their 
inspection train is crossing the plains a party of Indians 
seeing its approach attempt to stop it by stretching a 
lariat across the track with each end held by thirty 
braves. The consequences to the surprised and demora- 
lized redskins may be imagined. 

All the experiences of the party with the Indians were 
not, however, so farcical or amusing. When they reach 
the end of the line, "the front,” as it was called, they 
find construction halted and their workmen and surveyors 
occupied with a fierce attack from a band of savages. 

The party, including Jack and Gen. Dodge, quickly 
descend from the train and assist in driving off the 
Indians, pursuing them for quite a distance up into the 
wild country of the Black Hills. 

On this expedition. Jack and the General become 
separated from the others of their party, and while rid- 
ing through the mountains stumble by mistake into an 
encampment of hostiles. 

Instantly the tables are turned. The pursuers become 
the pursued. Jack and the General are obliged to ride 
for their lives. Racing along a high ridge, they see no 
chance for shelter or escape, when suddenly they find 
the ground beginning to slope, and are led into a con- 

37 


cealed depression among the hills, by following which 
they are able to get out of the mountains. 

Meeting a large company of their own men, the Gen- 
eral at once orders a return to the depression, and while 
a number of them hold the Indians back, he and his 
surveyors run a line through it. 

'‘This,” he exclaims, “is the pass through the Black 
Hills which I have been hunting and hoping for.” 

The spot of this adventure later became the site of 
the city of Cheyenne. 

RE-UNION AT APPOMATTOX. 

Returning from his journey to the West, Jack makes 
a favorable report to President Lincoln in regard to the 
progress of the railroad. He then rejoins the army, and 
remains with it until the end of the War. 

His participation in the final scenes of the great con- 
flict is presented not only for historic value, but also to 
show his eager recognition of the spirit of reunion rising 
over the battlefield of Appomattox with the surrender of 
Lee’s army in April, 1865. 

The passion for Union has taken Morey through the 
chaos and destruction of four years of bloody strife; 
and now the same passion fills his mind and heart with 
longings for Reunion. To him Appomattox means the 
opportunity to resume the work of building the Union, 
to make us as Washington said, “One people strong 
enough by that fact to resist foreign tyranny and ag- 
gression”; and he ardently desires in that work the 
cooperation of the men who have so gallantly fought 
on the other side. 

It is April, 1865. Lee has been driven from his trenches 
at Petersburg, and is seeking by forced marches to join 
Gen. Johnston in North Carolina. Grant, however, has 
succeeded in surrounding the remnants of Lee’s army at 
Appomattox, and as a result a truce is arranged. 

Seated at the foot of a pine tree. Grant rather care- 
lessly dressed in a soft, black hat, fatigue uniform and 
long boots covered with mud, prepares an order for the 
cessation of fighting. 

He writes it in a note-book laid on his knee, and tearing 

38 


out the leaf hands it to Jack Morey, who now a member 
of Grant’s staff, stands near holding- his horse. 

The order is to Gen. Sheridan announcing that a truce 
has been arranged with Gen. Lee, and directing him to 
discontinue the battle now raging at a distance, and which 
is being watched by little groups of officers surrounding 
Grant. 

Receiving the order. Jack gallops off with it to Sher- 
idan who, seated on horseback and with his staff around 
him, is watching the battle directly below them. 

Sheridan reads the order, and at once directs that a 
flag of truce be sent over to the opposing commander, 
Gen. John B. Gordon, to stop the fighting. 

Jack asks the privilege of carrying this flag, and his 
request being granted he starts off. 

As he approaches the Confederate lines, the firing 
ceases and he is received and escorted to Gen. Gordon. 
The soldiers on both sides, however, remain under arms 
and in their positions. 

Jack rides back again to join Gen. Grant who in the 
meantime has met Gen. Lee in the room at the McLean 
house where the surrender was consummated. 

Pictures of this historic meeting are so easily acces- 
sible that the details need not be given here. 

Grant, seated at a table, writes out the terms of sur- 
render and hands the paper to Gen. Lee. The latter 
reads and accepts the terms; then rises to depart, but 
hesitates and turns back to Grant with a suggestion of 
embarrassment in spite of his grave and dignified air. 
He says his soldiers are starving, and asks if they may 
not be supplied with rations. 

Grant at once turns and beckoning Morey who has 
entered and is standing in a knot of officers at the door, 
instructs him to see that supplies are furnished to the 
Confederates. 

Jack promptly assembles a wagon train of provisions, 
and with a battalion of Union soldiers to guard it marches 
it into the Confederate lines. While his men are un- 
loading the supplies, he sees a column of Confederates 
approaching. 

He issues a sharp order, and his men catching up their 
rifles and fixing their bayonets fall into ranks in parade 

39 


formation, the color bearer with the American fla^ in 
the center. 

The commander of the Confederate column seems sur- 
prised and a little uncertain at this demonstration for a 
moment, but quickly recognizing its meaning, marches 
ahead. 

His men are gaunt and haggard, their gray uniforms 
hang in rags, many of them are barefoot; but as they 
pass with their tattered battle-flags. Jack orders a salute, 
and the Confederates salute “Old Glory” in return. 

Ranks are then broken on both sides, and arms are 
stacked, and the colors of the two detachments planted 
not far from each other. 

A dapper young Union officer rides up, and with a 
show of authority demands from their commander the 
battle-flags of the Confederates. The haggard men in 
gray show quick resentment, and trouble seems imminent. 
But Jack interposes, and sends the martinet about his 
business, allowing the surrendered men to keep their flags. 

The provisions are then distributed among the hungry 
Southerners, and the men of the two commands frater- 
nize upon the ground where they so lately fought. When 
the Confederate commander details a squad of his men 
as color guard for the Union flag. Jack is deeply grat- 
ified, and sees in the incident the beginning of the 
Reunion and the wiping out of sectional feeling upon 
which his heart is set. 

AGAIN THE WEST BECKONS. 

At the conclusion of the war Jack is mustered out of 
the army, and naturally returns to the work in which he 
is so deeply interested, the construction of that railroad 
line across the continent which by uniting the East and 
West shall serve to perfect the Union. 

By Gen. Dodge, now chief engineer of the Union 
Pacific, he is placed in charge of an advance party en- 
gaged in locating the line a hundred miles or so ahead 
of where construction was going on in southern 
Wyoming. 

Both railroad companies sent out these parties of en- 
gineers into the unknown country that lay between their 
construction; camps, and the men who accepted this 
40 


service literally took their lives into their hands, braving 
the dangers of starvation, cold, losing their way in the 
wilderness, and the constant menace of attack from 
Indians and white outlaws. 

Jack, however, accepts the assignm.ent with enthusiasm, 
and pushes his survey along with the greatest energy. 
Engaged in such work, though, he and the men with him 
naturally become rough and forbidding in appearance, 
little different in general aspect from the bandits and 
“bad men” who infested this “No man’s land” in which 
they were at work, and who frequently held up the stage 
coaches and wagon trains which traversed the locality. 

On one occasion Jack with two companions ahead of 
the rest of the party is examining the topography ahead 
of them when they meet a stage coach. 

They start toward it to exchange greetings, waving 
their hands in friendship ; but the driver and express 
messenger, conscious of the fact that they are carrying 
a consignment of $12,000 in gold, are cautious. 

The driver whips up his horses, and the express mes- 
senger and the other men aboard warn them away with 
leveled weapons. 

Taking it as a joke. Jack and his companions ride off 
to resume their surveying, and give the matter no further 
thought. 

But some five or six miles farther on in a narrow defile, 
the stage actually is held up and the $12,000 carried off 
by three masked men not dissimilar in appearance to the 
three surveyors. 

As it happens, too, Tulita and her mother are passen- 
gers on this stage, making the journey from Dutch Flat 
to one of the railroad construction camps where De Leon 
has established a practical monopoly over the gambling 
and amusement activities of the place. 

Tulita sees and recognizes Morey as one of the three 
surveyors, and naturally supposes that he is one of the 
masked road-agents who later hold up the stage. Indeed, 
she is in a way responsible for the success of the hold-up, 
since she interferes with the aim of the express mes- 
senger when he had the chance of a shot at the man 
she believes to be Jack. 

She keeps her suspicions to herself, moreover, not 

41 


even divulging them to Sawyer, who through his political 
connections is now holding the position of U. S. Marshal 
for Northern Utah, and who on learning of the hold-up 
at once assembles a posse and starts in pursuit of the 
bandits. 

Meanwhile the construction work on the transcontin- 
ental lines had been making slow progress. The financial 
difficulties of both companies had increased rather than 
diminished, and even such slow advance in track-laying 
as was made was accomplished in the face of unheardof 
obstacles. There are so many dramatic episodes and 
such a wealth of easily accessible material connected 
with this phase of the enterprise that it has been thought 
best not to include any of them in the limits of this 
synopsis, but to reserve them for future discussion and 
selection. To show the desperation to which the com- 
panies were driven, however, it may be stated that on 
one occasion the Hardware Crowd tried vainly to peddle 
their franchise, while the Union Pacific was reduced to 
a point where it had to sell a lot of its rolling stock in 
order to obtain ready cash. 

The spirit of the men who were working for the Union 
of the East and West remained, however, undaunted. 
Jack with his advance party of explorers pushed on 
farther and farther into the wilderness until at last he 
gets into communication with a similar vanguard of 
the Central Pacific forces. 

On an elevation commanding the panorama of the 
prairies bounded only by the horizon, the two companies 
of engineers compare notes and agree upon a spot which 
they call Promontory Point, Utah, as the place where the 
two railroads shall join. A half-dozen axemen are di- 
rected to erect a pole and raise the American flag to 
mark the spot. 

So the end of the great work seems to be in sight. 
But the clouds of discouragement and financial worry 
are hanging heavier and heavier over the heads of the 
men who have it in charge. 

TEN MILLIONS NEEDED. 

The two railroads under the act of Congress authoriz- 
ing their construction must be completed by May ist, 
42 


1869, and according to the same act the final payment 
of the Government subsidy is not to be made until the 
Union Pacific and the Central Pacific are actually joined. 
The subsidy will then approximate $20,000,000 in Gov- 
eniment bonds. 

During the winter and spring of 1869 doubt had been 
growing in the minds of the '‘Hardware Crowd” and 
their associates of the Union Pacific as to whether the 
work could be completed within the time limit. About 
March ist a meeting is held in Hell-on-Wheels, attended 
by Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford, Crocker and Durant 
to canvass the situation. It is in a rough shack, built of 
railroad ties, used as the office of the railroads. Jack 
has been summoned to make a report on the progress of 
the work of locating the line and his replies, illustrated 
by maps and field notes, are satisfactory. Harry Austin, 
who is also present, is instructed to use every means 
to push forward the track-laying and grading on the line 
surveyed by Jack and is given a small map on which the 
line is indicated. Crocker and Hopkins receive these 
reports and give the instructions to the two engineers 
while Huntington, Stanford and Durant talk earnestly 
together. The seven men are seated at a long table, the 
three last named at one end while the rest are grouped 
at the other, Austin nearest to Huntington, Stanford 
and Durant. During the conference he overhears the 
following dialogue: 

Stanford: Ten million dollars — that’s what we need 
to carry us through. 

Huntington : Durant, you and I have got to borraw it. 
We’ll go to New York tonight. 

Durant : All right. We’ve all got to chip in with our 
railroad stock. 

Austin makes a note of the conversation as he listens 
to it. 

Huntington and Durant go to New York. There they 
succeed in negotiating a loan on call of the money needed 
to complete the roads. As the stock of the Union Pacific 
and Central Pacific is listed and dealt in on the Stock 
Exchange it is accepted as collateral by the bankers who 
make the loan. The details of the transaction leak out 
and more or less accurate reports get into the newspapers, 

43 


as everything connected with the Transcontinental Rail- 
road is of great public interest. These reports attract 
the attention of James Fisk, Jr., who at that time was 
one of the most prominent and unscrupulous of the Wall 
Street operators. He consults with William M. Tweed, 
the political boss of New York and they make plans for 
a raid on the stock of the Pacific Railroads, which include 
a bear campaign to get control of a majority of the 
stock coupled with corrupt manipulation by Tweed of 
members of Congress to influence legislation favorable 
to the conspirators. Before putting their plans into effect, 
however, Fisk decides to see for himself how the rail- 
roads are getting on, so he makes the trip to Hell-on- 
Wheels. 

After the meeting with Durant and the Hardware 
Crowd, at which Jack has made his report he goes to the 
Big Tent to see the sights of Hell-on-Wheels. It is 
evening and the place is at the height of its activity. 

He finds Joe Langley, one of his two companions in 
the encounter with the stage-coach carrying Tulita and 
her mother to Hell-on-Wheels. Langley in the reaction 
from the months of work and hardship of the surveying 
trip, has thrown himself recklessly into the whirl of the 
Big Tent and is drinking and betting exuberantly at one 
of the roulette wheels. He is in the midst of a winning 
streak and pays no attention to Jack when the latter 
good-naturedly protests. 

At that moment there is a sudden commotion at an 
entrance over by the bar, the play at the faro tables and 
roulette wheels ceases and the crowd surges in the di- 
rection, for Tulita had come and is about to dance. A 
passage is opened for her as she walks down. She is 
in Spanish dancing costume, a flash of scarlet and gold, 
but she seems preoccupied and indifferent. In the middle 
of her dpce, which immediately begins, she sees Jack 
who, oblivious of everything else, has stood watching 
her on the fringe of the crowd. Her manner under- 
goes a change. She throws her soul into her dancing 
which has been somewhat perfunctory and all her ac- 
customed fire and sparkle and coquetry return. 

At the conclusion of the dance Langley pushes his 
44 


way toward her, greeting her boisterously and showers 
her with money. Jack intervenes and as the two men 
stand before her she recalls the picture of the three men 
she saw from the stage-coach, recognizing Langley as 
one of Jack’s companions. Langley impatiently wrests 
himself from Jack’s grasp and declares that he has 
enough money to buy the Big Tent and knows where 
there is more. He is shouldered out of the way, how- 
ever, and mingles with the crowd. Jack and Tulita 
greet each other. He is filled with wonder at this beau- 
tiful young woman whom he last saw at Fredericksburg 
while she, overjoyed as she is at the meeting, is, for the 
moment thinking of Langley’s words as a confirmation 
of her belief that Jack is one of the highwaymen who 
held up the stage-coach. Before they can recover them- 
selves Mrs. De Leon intervenes, eagerly demanding the 
money which men, following Langley’s example have 
been loading upon Tulita. While they are arguing an 
uproar rises in a crowd at the bar. Jack sees that Lang- 
ley has become involved in a brawl and hastens to his 
assistance while Tulita is dragged oflf to a table at which 
her father and Bill Pate are seated. 

Before Jack can reach him Langley is rescued by a 
few husky Irishmen led by Michael Shay, now a section 
gang foreman on the railroad but formerly a comrade of 
Jack in the war. After the disturbance is suppressed 
and Langley wanders off Jack and Shay, delighted at 
the reunion, talk and Shay says they are constantly in 
conflict with the bad men, headed by Pate and aided 
and abetted by De Leon and his daughter. He indi- 
cates the group seated at De Leon’s table. 

Tulita meanwhile, irritated by her father and mother 
who, assuming from their past experience with Jack, 
that he is employed by the railroad, have warned her 
against him lets out the story of Jack’s supposed hold- 
up of the stage, intending it as a defence of him. De 
Leon and Pate listen eagerly. The result is that they 
make advances to Jack as one who will sympathize with 
their intriguing against the railroad and he, previously 
enlightened by Mike Shay, responds, in the hope that he 
may gain knowledge of their doings and perhaps thwart 
them. He does gain their confidence and on one occasion, 
45 


with the co-operation of Shay defeats their plan to wreck 
a train of railroad supplies the prompt delivery of which 
is vital at this junction. 

Some weeks elapse. It is the middle of March and 
construction work is being pushed frantically for over 
250 miles of track remain to be laid in less than seven 
weeks. At this time Fisk appears at Hell-on-Wheels, 
ostensibly as one of the many parties of tourists which 
visited the camp. He is a high-liver, fond of women 
and prodigal in money matters, but withal keen and ruth- 
less in the pursuit of his financial schemes. By a lavish, 
though judicious expenditure of money in the Big Tent 
he manages to establish with De Leon a certain degree 
of friendliness and finally convincing the suspicious 
Spaniard that he, in his own way, is against the rail- 
road, draws from De Leon that much may be learned 
respecting construction plans and prospects from Austin, 
who though an able engineer, is weak, vain and when 
drinking loquacious. Fisk finds time for diversion among 
the habitues of the Big Tent and begins an ardent pur- 
suit of Tulita. At first she is repelled by him but learn- 
ing from her father of his scheming against the rail- 
road and urged by her avaricious mother to turn his 
generosity to account she suppresses her feeling of dis- 
taste. Through her Fisk meets Austin and as a result 
he arranges a dinner which he gives in a small tent 
secured for the purpose. He entertains a mixed com- 
pany which includes De Leon and his wife, Pate and his 
woman known as Hurricane Kate, one of the most at- 
tractive of the Big Tent women, Austin and Tulita. His 
purpose is to pump Austin, when the latter has relaxed 
under the influence of drink. In this he is seconded by 
Tulita and between them they play upon Austin’s weak- 
ness and vanity and turning the talk to the railroad 
finally get from him the declaration that completion of 
the construction within the time limit is impossible. In 
proof of this he produces the map given him by Crocker 
which shows the unfinished line and the progress of con- 
struction. Unobserved by Fisk or Austin, Tulita man- 
ages to secure possession of it. 

Fisk then returns to New York and begins his bear 
campaign on the transcontinental roads. He employs 
46 


one set of brokers to sell, and another to buy, the stock, and 
as a result of the operation the price is beaten down. The 
is thrown on the market and is bought in by Fisk. The 
bankers who made the loan to Durant and Fluntington 
find that they must protect themselves and call the loan, 
and the companies being unable to take it up the collateral 
is thrown on the market and is bought in by Fisk. The 
result is that Fisk secures a majority of the stock of 
the Union Pacific & Central Pacific Railroads and backed 
by Tweed’s political influence and the sure prospect of 
any Congressional action that he may want looks for- 
ward to the control of the great transcontinental rail- 
road. 

Fisk’s coup makes a great sensation. Wall Street and 
the Stock Exchange are scenes of frantic excitement and 
the papers of the country are filled with highly colored 
details. 

Durant and the Hardware Crowd find themselves de- 
livered into the hands of Fisk and compelled to accept 
whatever terms he wishes to impose. An agreement 
is finally reached the substance of which is that, for the 
return of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific stock 
acquired by Fisk, carrying with it the control of the two 
companies, he shall receive the whole amount of the 
Government subsidy — ^$20,000,000 — earned by them upon 
the completion of their railroad lines. Realizing the 
slenderness of the thread upon which hangs their hope 
of reaping the fruits of their years of labor and self- 
sacrifice the Hardware Crowd with their associates of 
the Union Pacific, seek from the officials of the Govern- 
ment an extension of the time limit from May i to May 
31. The Government however, is without power or 
discretion in the matter inasmuch as the time limit has 
been fixed by act of Congress and can be extended only 
by the same means. Congress is not in session and the 
authorities have no choice but to deny the application. 

Confronted by this situation, the builders of the trans- 
continental railroad refuse to allow themselves to be 
discouraged and, as strong men do, find in the emergency 
a stimulant to greater effort. Construction is therefore, 
pushed forward with renewed energy. 

47 


Jack Morey is entrusted with the supervision of the 
work of grading the line previously surveyed and lo- 
cated by him and the Central Pacific. It will, of course, 
take him away from Hell-on- Wheels and he comes to 
the Big Tent to see Tulita before he goes. He finds her 
with Henry Austin, who more or less under the influence 
of liquor is making love to her. Jack, however, takes 
her away and together they wander out into the moon- 
light. He tells her he is going away. She, not dream- 
ing that his mission is in behalf of the railroad and 
anxious for his safety because of her conviction that he 
is really a bandit begs him not to go but he laughingly 
reassures her without, however, telling her about his 
work. They have a love scene and part apparently with 
perfect understanding. 

The graders, superintended by Jack, have practically 
completed their work and are encamped at Promontory 
Point, April 29, 1869. It is early morning and the 
camp is beginning to show signs of life. A man pre- 
pares to raise the flag on the pole previously set by 
the surveyors. As the flag goes up a band of Indians 
and bad men which has been lying in ambush attacks 
the camp. The graders, as was always the case, are 
armed to protect themselves against just such emergen- 
cies and are rallied for defence by Jack. Two miles 
or so distant a troop of U. S. Cavalry is making its 
way through the hills and comes out to a point over- 
looking the prairie below. As they see the fight at the 
camp they dash forward to the assistance of the rail- 
road men and the marauders are routed. 

When the fight is over Jack learns from the officer 
in command of the troop that he is on his way to a 
neighboring fort where soldiers are gathering under 
orders from General Sherman to assist in protecting the 
railroad construction gangs. Jack goes to the fort with 
the troop and there arranges with the commandant for 
the prompt dispatch of soldiers to any threatened point 
on receipt of summons from him by telegraph. He 
then hurries to Hell-on-Wheels to report to Durant and 
the Hardware Crowd. 

It is the night of April 28, 1869, but two more days 
are left to the Hardware Crowd. At one of the tables 
48 


in the Big Tent, Tulita, Mrs. De Leon and Hurricane 
Kate are seated. Tulita lies back in her chair, dreamy 
and preoccupied. She is thinking of her last meeting 
with Jack. Mrs. De Leon is knitting and Kate is “run- 
ning the cards.” The tent is in its usual condition of 
boisterous gayety. A few feet away Pate and De Leon 
sit at another table with their heads together. Austin 
who has been drinking appears in the crowd and looking 
around vacantly sees Tulita and with an unsteady gait 
goes to her. Roused from her reverie, a look of disgust 
crosses her face as he greets her. He sits down and 
insists upon making love to her, but she shows her con- 
tempt. While he is attempting to placate her, Fisk 
who has come to Hell-on- Wheels to gloat over the rail- 
road people, pushes his way through the crowd seeking 
out Tulita. He immediately joins her and Austin with 
boisterous joviality. Mrs. De Leon and Kate leave the 
table and Fisk sits down. He acts like a man well sat- 
isfied with the world, especially with the woman be- 
fore him and begins to rally Austin on the railroad’s 
fading prospects. Austin, who resents his coming, 
perversely takes the opposite side and Fisk, merely to ag- 
gravate him, appeals to Tulita. She draws from her bosom 
the map of which she had previously secured posses- 
sion and shows it, indicating the progress of the con- 
struction to prove that she has kept track of it and 
that more than 25 miles remains unfinished. 

Meanwhile Mike Shay, the section foreman, has come 
in seeking Austin. He approaches the group first as 
Tulita exhibits the map and when he sees what it is 
snatches it from her hand and turns on Austin indig- 
nantly. 

The next day Durant and the Hardware Crowd gather 
in the railroad’s office in Hell-on-Wheels. It is the 
body of an old freight car which has been removed 
from its trucks and placed on the ground. 

This car is used as the temporary office of the rail- 
road company. The interior contains a long wooden 
table, a desk and a smaller table with a telegraph instru- 
ment on it. 

Stanford and Huntington and Crocker are seated in 
conversation with Durant. 

49 


In canvassing the situation, they estimate that, to re- 
tain possession of the railroads for which they have 
toiled and fought and sacrificed so much they must lay 
seven miles of Union Pacific and ten miles of Central 
Pacific track the next day which will be the last. 

Stanford, Crocker and Durant are hopeless but Hunt- 
ington with clenched fist refuses to give up and declares 
that, “What ought to be done can be done.” 

While they are talking, the door is thrown open vio- 
lently and Hopkins enters followed by Tulita, Austin, 
Fisk, Sawyer, the U. S. Marshal of Northern Utah and 
Mike Shay. 

Plopkins excitedly shows the map which Shay had 
taken from Tulita and handed over to Hopkins. It is 
developed that Hopkins had made upon Sawyer a de- 
mand for the arrest of Tulita and Fisk on a charge of 
corrupting Austin, Sawyer as a Federal official is pre- 
pared to discharge his duties unflinchingly in spite of 
his previous associations and sympathies, but has ex- 
pressed doubts of his authority. In the course of the 
exciting scene which follows Tulita looks on haughty 
and disdainful, Austin is frightened and cringing while 
Fisk is jaunty and triumphant. Sawyer is patient until 
Hopkins makes a remark about Tulita when he stiffens 
and drawls in a tone of menace, “I want you gentlemen 
to understand that Tulita De Leon is the straightest girl 
in the whole West.” 

The outcome is that Austin is dismissed from the 
railroad service and Sawyer is warned to keep track of 
the movements of Fisk, Austin, and Tulita. The four 
then go out and Shay moves to follow them, but is de- 
tained by Huntington who wants to talk to him about 
construction now that Austin is gone. 

Meanwhile Jack is hurrying from the fort to Hell-on- 
Wheels. A few moments after the departure of Sawyer 
and the others he dashes up on horseback and runs 
into the office. He finds the gathering gravely discus- 
sing with Shay the complication caused by Austin’s dis- 
missal. Upon his appearance Shay turns to him with 
a shout of welcome and announces to the sober men 
around the table that Morey is the man, above all 
others, that they need in the emergency. They eagerly 

50 


grasp at the suggestion and the situation is explained 
to Jack and everything is turned over to him. His 
first act is to sit down at the telegraph instrument and 
send a message to the commandant at the fort instruct- 
ing him to detail troops to guard the railroad line and 
the workers. He then goes off with Shay and spends the 
rest of the day organizing the railroad forces and ar- 
ranging for the supply of materials for the last supreme 
effort. 

The tale of that last day, the hopelessness of the out- 
look, the exhibition of resolution and daring, the array 
of obstacles met and overcome, the significance of its 
achievement, fitly epitomizes, not merely the whole rail- 
road enterprise, but also the growth and consummation 
of Jack Morey’s dream of Union. 

THE DRAMA OF HELL-ON- WHEELS. 

The scene now shifts to the Big Tent the evening of 
April 29. In it is gathered a motley crowd of Irish 
and Chinese laborers, gamblers, bad men and dance-hall 
girls — practically the entire population of Hell-on- 
Wheels. The bands are playing, the bar is doing a 
rushing business, and every gambling layout is sur- 
rounded by a crowd of eager players. But through this 
usual atmosphere of reckless gayety, there runs a feeling 
of tense unrest and excitement. Men are drawing apart 
for conferences ; there are hot arguments, and heavy 
wagers are being laid. 

It has been whispered more and more confidently 
that the “Hardware Crowd” is in desperate straits, and 
the Big Tent exults over their certain defeat, while the 
betting runs higher and higher against them. 

De Leon the proprietor of the Big Tent, is moving 
about among the groups, silent and wary, listening first 
to one and then the other. 

He meets Bill Pate and the two taking counsel to- 
gether, plan to get the laborers to drinking and carous- 
ing so that they will be unfit for duty the next day, 
and he therefore urges De Leon to have Tulita give a 
dance, while he himself approaching Hurricane Kate 
orders her to move about among the men and incite 
them to drinking. 

SI 


Kate rebels, but Pate roughly jerks her out of her 
chair, and commands her to do as she is told. 

Austin, who has entered the tent comes up to the De 
Leon-Pate group. He has been drinking heavily. Sit- 
ting down at a table, he speaks of his dismissal from the 
railroads and bitterly retails his grievances. Pate draws 
out of him that the most efficacious way to block the 
railroad company would be to blow up a wooden trestle 
two miles out of Promontory. 

Tulita then appears for her dance and the usual 
demonstration is made over her. 

Presently Jack enters the tent and catching sight of 
him as he shoulders his way through the crowd, Tulita 
endeavors to attract his attention. He ignores her, how- 
ever, for he has noticed that his workmen under the in- 
fluence of Kate and the other girls are being lured to 
the bar and the tables. He moves among them, and 
orders them sharply to leave the tent and go to their 
quarters. 

Pate rushes forward and demands to know by what 
right he is interfering. Jack tells him that he is the 
new engineer of construction. 

While the two men are measuring each other. Sawyer 
joins them to avert a clash which seems to be impend- 
ing. A crowd gathers and Tulita abruptly ends her 
dance and hurries to Jack’s side, at the same time tak- 
ing his part against Pate. Whereupon Pate heatedly in- 
forms her that Jack is now in charge of the railroad 
construction. 

Staggered by this revelation she turns incredulously 
to Jack and reads confirmation in his face. Convinced 
now that he has trifled with her she attacks him in a 
passion of resentment. Sawyer attempts to quiet her 
and then she denounces Jack as one of the bandits who 
held up the stage and stole the $12,000 in gold. Sawyer 
seems doubtful at first but she insists and tells the story 
of her recognition of Jack so convincingly that he finally 
places the latter under arrest as one of the men he has 
trailed so long. He then takes Jack to his own shack 
where he ties him up, locks the door and goes out, on 
his way to the railroad office to notify the officials of 
Jack’s arrest. 


52 


After the arrest Tulita flings herself out of the tent 
to be alone and fight out her battle with herself. 

Meanwhile Pate and De Leon consult together. They 
are furious over Jack’s apparent desertion to the rail- 
road, but still more alarming is the fact that they fear 
that, in his association with them, he has gathered proof 
to connect them directly with the acts of outlawry and 
the various depredations which have been committed 
against the railroad. 

As they debate what to do, one of a band of bad men 
which had been collected to stampede the company’s 
mules and horses comes hurrying in with the report 
that U. S. Cavalry is guarding the corral and that noth- 
ing can be done. 

‘'Morey is alone at the Marshal’s shack clear at the 
other end of the camp,” cries Pate. “It is our one 
chance to finish him.” 

He hurries away to the men who are gathered for 
a rush upon the corral. 

“Let that go,” he orders them. “There’s bigger game 
on hand. Sawyer has got a sneaking spy tied up in 
his cabin who’s got the record of every mother’s son 
of you. If you don’t get him to-night, and hang him, 
he’ll hang every one of you.” 

The men under Pate’s leadership start for Sawyer’s 
cabin to lynch Jack, gathering up other desperate char- 
acters as they go. 

Meanwhile Tulita has returned to the Big Tent, Austin 
meets her and makes a venomous remark about Jack. 

“I hate him!” declares Tulita bitterly. “I hate him! 
I hate him! I hate him!” 

“Well, he will be taken care of,” says Austin viciously. 
“He is alone up in Sawyer’s cabin, and Bill Pate and 
the boys have gone up to lynch him.” 

In sudden revulsion of feeling at the news of Jack’s 
danger Tulita rushes from the tent. Outside she meets 
a little Irish fiddler who always plays for her dances, 
and who is now playing to himself in the moonlight. 

She seizes him by the shoulder and excitedly ac- 
quainting him with the situation, sends him scurrying 
off to inform the Hardware Crowd of Jack’s peril. 

53 


As for herself, she hastens on to Sawyer's cabin, 
breaks down the door into the rear room with an axe, 
and unties Jack. 

They start to leave the place together; but at that 
moment the front door of the cabin is flung open, and 
Sawyer enters. 

He was at the railroad office when Mickey, the Irish 
fiddler appeared with Tulita's message and at once left 
for his own shack, while the Hardware Crowd hasten 
to summon the cavalry at the corral to rescue Jack from 
the lynchers, and also rout out their own laborers. 

Sawyer’s purpose in going to his cabin was to save 
Jack from the mob ; but when he sees Tulita there alone 
with the man he feels is his most dangerous rival, his 
smouldering jealousy flames into a sudden fury. 

He stands a moment looking at the two; then as the 
sound of the approaching mob reaches them, an idea 
comes to him. 

“You’re free,” he says curtly to Jack. “Now I want 
my cabin to myself.” He jerks his head toward the 
door. “Get out!” 

Jack and Tulita both stare at him. They realize that 
if Morey leaves at that moment, he goes to certain 
death. Tulita flings herself forward to protest, but 
Sawyer pays no heed to her. He stands looking at 
Jack in cold inflexible triumph. 

“Get out!” he repeats. 

Jack looks at him a moment longer, then shrugs his 
shoulders and starts for the door. Tulita throws her- 
self upon him, and tries to hold him back. He stops 
to reassure her, and Sawyer sneers. 

Stung by this. Jack wrests himself free from Tulita, 
thrusts her away, and springs toward the door. 

In her desperation she leaps forward, snatches 
Sawyer’s revolver from him, and fires. ‘ The bullet 
strikes Jack in the leg and he staggers back and falls 
just inside the threshold. Springing in front of him, 
Tulita faces the mob outside. 

“I’ve got him, boys!” she cries. Then stripping oflf 
her jewels and ornaments she flings them to the crowd. 
“Take these down to the Big Tent and bet,” she says. 

54 


“Bet everything you’ve got, that the railroad cannot 
win.” 

Bill Pate and some of the leaders of the mob press 
forward. They want to make sure that Jack is really 
dead ; but while she is holding them back with her 
feminine wiles, the gallop of the cavalry is heard, and 
at the word that the soldiers are coming the mob quickly 
dissipates. 

Tulita slams the door of the cabin, and kneeling down 
beside Jack tries to revive him. Sawyer steps forward 
as if to aid her, but she waves him back. 

‘T had to do it to save him,” she cries; “But if he 
dies I will kill you.” 

Jack is just coming back to consciousness when the 
soldiers enter. They remove him to the storehouse of 
the railroad, where the company surgeon finds that his 
leg has been shattered by Tulita’s shot. 

THE HARDWARE CROWD COME IN. 

Jack insists that he shot himself by accident, although 
the surgeon is plainly skeptical. Tulita remains in 
solicitous attendance on him, and assists the surgeon 
in dressing his wound; but he shows impatience at 
being fussed over, and as soon as his bandages are on, 
turns again to his work. The surgeon and the “Hard- 
ware Crowd” protest. They tell him he should remain 
quiet, but he will listen to no suggestions of the kind. 
Under his instructions, a pair of improvised crutches is 
fashioned for him by one of the railroad carpenters, 
and a buckboard and horse made ready for his use. 

Then as the dawn breaks, he hobbles out, and com- 
mences issuing his orders and busily aligning his forces 
of men and material for the task ahead. 

Tulita follows him solicitously about, but absorbed in 
his duties, he answers her shortly and treats her con- 
stantly as if she were in the way, until smarting under 
his rebuffs, she leaves him and goes home. 

There in response to the demands of her father and 
mother as to what she has been doing tells them that 
Jack has been shot but, in spite of his injuries intends 
to complete the railroad that day. This news is given 
to Bill Pate and he realizing that he has been tricked 

55 


by Sawyer with several of his followers determines to 
be revenged on the Marshal. Still clinging to the hope 
of defeating the plans of the railroad they prepare to 
carry out the plan to blow up the trestle, located on the 
Central Pacific line at Promontory Point. This last 
attempt is to be made, however, only in case it appears 
likely that the work of construction will be completed. 
The details of this last desperate measure having been 
agreed upon the gang turn their attention to Sawyer. 
Pate’s woman. Hurricane Kate, is instructed to trail the 
Marshal and report his movements, so that the most 
favorable moment may be selected to put him out of 
the way without detection. She undertakes, rather half- 
heartedly, to carry out her instructions, but is unable to 
make any satisfactory report, because Sawyer in command 
of the forces organized to defend the workmen is never 
alone during the day. She finally tells Pate in the Big 
Tent that it is useless and that she will not go on spying 
upon the Marshal. They have an altercation which ends 
by his knocking her down and beating her. As she lies 
on the ground she hears him discussing with a few of 
his followers the plan to blow up the trestle. Thoroughly 
cowed and in despair she wanders aimlessly out of the 
tent into the prairie. 

Meanwhile, on the morning of April 30, 1869, the 
work of track laying has commenced at the “fronts” of 
the two railroads promptly at seven o’clock. The two 
construction gangs are now seventeen miles apart and 
their task is to cover that interval before the end of the 
day. 

At Hell-on- Wheels practically the whole population 
has gathered to watch the workmen. There are also 
correspondents of newspapers East and West, Jack in his 
buckboard is actively in charge seconded by Mike Shay. 
Durant and the Hardware Crowd have gathered on an 
elevation a mile or two away and from there they have a 
panoramic view of the scene. In the background they see 
the city of tents and shacks, dominated by the Big Tent in 
the center. The railroad, running through it, is crowded 
with supply trains, pushing their way through the throngs 
of spectators. In advance of them are the track layers, 
seizing rails and ties as they are rushed up in wagons 

56 


from the trains throwing them into place and fastening 
them with spikes and bolts. And still further in advance 
runs the graded line of the railroad for miles guarded 
by U. S. Cavalry and all of the railroad employees not 
actually engaged in the work of construction. 

The railroad builders look down upon this picturesque 
scene of their last supreme effort, conscious not only of 
the fact that their personal fortunes are at stake but also 
that they are witnesses of the final consummation of the 
Union of States. 

At the camp of the Central Pacific seventeen miles 
away there is practically a repetition of the same scenes. 
Both gangs of workers have set out toward their com- 
mon goal Promontory Point, and so the day advances. 

Tulita has remained with her mother in their living 
quarters adjacent to the Big Tent. Mrs. De Leon per- 
plexed and uneasy over the girl’s unexplained absence 
during the night, has determined that she shall be kept 
under restraint during the day and stays with her. 
Tulita shows no disposition to go out. She appears to 
be subdued but in reality her mind is filled with thoughts 
of Morey. From the window of their shack she can 
see the work begun on the railroad construction and 
the crowd which follows it and Morey in his buckboard, 
the leading spirit, directing and pervading it all. She 
turns from the window and sits down to think. Then 
come to her pictures of her various meetings with him, 
first in the wagon train, again his rescue of her when 
she was lost in the mountains next in Washington. He 
seems to her always to be planning and building and 
she the wild, free untamed girl. She sees him as he 
lies wounded in Sawyer’s shack and now, with indomit- 
able spirit still planning and building. She remains in 
seclusion under her mother’s eye, until at last about 
the middle of the afternoon growing restless and anxious 
about Jack she manages to elude her mother. She slips 
out, saddles her pony and dashes off out into the prairie. 
After riding several miles she reaches an eminence from 
which she has a view of the railroad gang at work in 
the midst of a broad stretch of prairie. Here she en- 
counters Hurricane Kate wandering miserable and des- 
perate in the sage brush. She stops, dismounts and 

57 


walks with her. Seeing the despairing condition of the 
woman Tulita, moved with pity speaks to her with un- 
wonted gentleness and manages to draw from her the 
story of Pate’s brutality. This brings before her vividly 
pictures of the sordid, brutal, aimless and lawless side 
of the Western life. Scenes of the licentiousness in the 
Big Tent of which she has been a careless witness flood 
her mind in sharp contrast to the spirit of the railroad 
builders. Her soul revolts at the life in Hell-on- Wheels 
and she realizes that it is a blight upon the beauty which 
has always been her passion. Dimly she begins to see 
that the constructive genius of the railroad is really the 
friendly instrument in the development and growth of 
all she loves and that it is personified in Morey. As 
these pictures pass before her vision she turns and looks 
at the men working in the distance. Filled with the 
conviction that it means the realization of her longings 
and the redemption of the ignorant element of the West 
typified in Kate she takes the woman in her arms and 
comforts her. 

They have wandered along the ridge overlooking the 
railroad lines and have reached an elevation almost op- 
posite the position of the flag at Promontory Pint. 

As the day has waned the effort to complete the seven- 
teen miles of track has become more and more uncertain. 
Jack has driven his men furiously and they have re- 
sponded loyally. The only men who have shown no signs 
of flagging are the eight stalwart Irishmen, Mike Shay, 
the foreman, Pat Joyce, Thomas Daly, Mike Kennedy, 
Fred McNamara, Ed Killeen, Mike Sullivan and George 
Wyatt. They not only work with ever renewed energy 
and zeal but encourage the others and sing: 

Then drill, my Paddies, drill; 

Drill, my heroes, drill; 

Drill all day 
No sugar in your tay, 

Workin’ on the U. P. Railway. 

These eight men have laid all the rails; others, placing 
ties, driving spikes, bolting fishplates, unable to stand 
the terrific strain, fall out exhausted and their places 
are filled by fresh recruits marshalled by Jack. 

58 


The work is pushed feverishly. The “Hardware 
Crowd^^ has spent the day in a state of nervous tension. 
They have kept close to the construction gangs anxiously 
watching the progress of the track-laying of both rail- 
roads east and west toward the point of union. 

They have now taken up their position on the same 
elevation that Tulita and Kate are approaching from which 
they can look down on the working gangs of the Union 
Pacific to the left and the Central Pacific to the right. 
Between the Central Pacific workers and Promontory 
Point lies the trestle, about a mile distant. 

The two women come on slowly, talking earnestly, 
Tulita still leading her horse, when Kate, happening to 
catch sight of the trestle, stops suddenly with an exclama- 
tion of fear. Tulita, sharply questioning her, learns that 
her father and Pate have one more trump which they 
intend to play. They have planted a quantity of powder 
under the trestle at a point indicated by Austin as the 
best to effect its destruction, and when the track-layers 
have approached it they intend to blow it up. 

Hearing this, Tulita, determined that Jack shall have 
fair play, springs upon her horse, dashes up to the rail- 
road group, informs them of the danger and then rides 
for the trestle at top speed. The “Hardware Crowd” 
hurry down the slope, panic-stricken, to Sawyer, who. 
with some of his deputies, all mounted, are gathered at 
the base of the flagpole. They tell him what they have 
learned and he gallops off to the trestle. 

Meanwhile Tulita has arrived at the foot of the trestle 
and after a hasty search finds a pile of powder kegs 
obviously arranged for an explosion and rolls them down 
a little incline into the creek which runs through the 
gully. 

While she is doing this Pate and two or three of his 
followers, who are hiding in the sage-brush a little dis- 
tance away, ready to fire the train of powder that they 
have laid to the kegs, see her and rush out to intercept 
her. Sawyer, however, comes riding up with his deputies 
and a gunfight ensues in which the outlaws are driven 
off and Pate is killed. Sawyer falls from his horse, 
mortally wounded, and dies in Tulita’s arms. Some 
of the soldiers who have been guarding the Central 

59 


Pacific line come ^allopin^ up, take charge of Sawyer’s 
body and escort Tulita back to Promontory Point. 

The “Hardware Crowd,” after Sawyer has left them, 
have returned to their place of observation on the Hill 
from where they anxiously watch for signs of the de- 
struction of the trestle. They are presently joined by 
Jack in his buckboard. He descends from it wearily but 
is roused by the excited talk of the “Hardware Crowd” 
who tell him of the attempt upon the trestle. While they 
are watching it they see a little cavalcade approaching 
and presently it draws near enough for them to recognize 
it as the soldiers who are acting as escort to Tulita. 
Sawyer’s body has also been brought along. After ex- 
planations have been made attention is again directed to 
the track-layers, both gangs now being in full view. The 
panorama that is spread before them, striking and pic- 
turesque as it is, does not inspire these men, for the 
conviction comes over them that with their goal almost 
within their grasp, defeat and disaster will after all be 
their reward. 

They turn to Jack, seeking the assurance they crave, 
but he shakes his head and says, waving his arm in the 
direction of the workers, “It’s no use; they have done 
more than flesh and blood ever did before.” 

Tulita, who is kneeling beside Sawyer’s body, hears 
his voice. She looks at him, and then in the direction in 
which his arm is extended. Realizing what it all means 
she springs to her feet and runs down the slope. Dash- 
ing up to Mike Shay she speaks to him excitedly and 
gestures toward a platform which has been built at the 
foot of the flagpole and then, running to the foreman 
of the Central Pacific gang, several hundred yards away, 
she does the same to him. Turning from him she picks 
up Mickey, the little Irish fiddler, drags him along with 
her to the platform, mounts it and begins a dance to 
his accompaniment. It is her wildest, most exhilarating 
performance; she dances with a freedom and abandon 
she has never shown before. The men of the two gangs 
look at her for a moment in wonder and then, grasping 
her purpose, and inspired by her spirit and enthusiasm, 
they fall upon their work. 

The group upon the hill-top have watched all this with 
6o 


intense interest. As they see the effect of Tulita’s action, 
they, too, hurry down and gather about the flag, their 
interest divided between the dancer and the workmen. 

The outcome of it all is that the two gangs of laborers 
succeed in laying the last rails within the time limit. 

The tracks have been previously cleared of the supply 
trains, their places being taken by trains of passenger 
coaches filled with tourists and invited guests. The 
engines of these trains are now brought together until 
their pilots touch, the episode of which Bret Harte wrote 
his poem: 

“What the Engines Said.” 

Jack struggles to the platform beside Tulita and takes 
her in his arms. He points out over the prairie and a 
picture appears, of an ox-train making its slow way 
over the lonely plain. This fades into the same plain 
spanned by a modem double-track railroad with its 
equipment of telegraph lines and bordered by fields of 
golden wheat. Near the edge of the horizon are the 
outlines of a great city, its tall buildings and the smoking 
chimneys of its factories standing out against the sky. 
Trains of Pullmans and freight trains are passing over 
the tracks. 

Again Jack is shown speaking to Tulita. He says: 

“The Union! Permanent! Inviolate! Prepared!” 

The picture again fades into that showing the same 
double-track railroad. Now a great train of Pullmans 
carrying a regiment of United States soldiers is passing. 


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